PM Narendra Modi mentions Bihar four times

PATNA: In his 65th edition of ‘Mann Ki Baat’ broadcast on Sunday, PM Narendra Modi referred to Bihar, where assembly elections are due in October-November this year, on at least four occasions – directly or indirectly.

While Bihar is part of the country’s eastern region, the PM called the region “country’s growth engine whose workforce possesses the capability and the might to take the country to greater heights.” With assembly elections due in Bihar this year and in neighbouring West Bengal next year, the PM’s message was too striking to be ignored.

That apart, Bihar figured directly in the PM’s Mann Ki Baat broadcast on three occasions – first, when he talked about the need for a solution for migrant workers; second when the PM referred to skill mapping of migrants and third when he introduced ‘Shriman Himanshu’ from the state who wrote on the NaMo App that he dreamt of a day when India reduces imports to the bare minimum. The PM also mentioned the names of the items whose imports, according to Himanshu, should be reduced to the bare minimum.

The PM said the need of the hour is to devise a new mechanism to end the problems being faced by the migrant workers”

Otherwise, the PM’s Mann Ki Baat turned out to be a big event for the state BJP. “At least 4.90 lakh office-bearers and members of the newly formed ‘saptarishi’ units at the level of polling booth along with lakhs of other party workers and sympathisers listened to the PM’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ broadcast on Sunday,” state BJP spokesman and former MLA Prem Ranjan Patel said.

There are over 72,000 polling booths in the state, while every ‘saptarishi’ unit constituted to take the PM’s achievements to the people of the state in their respective jurisdictions has seven functionaries. State BJP president Dr Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal heard the PM’s broadcast at his booth in Bettiah.

Patel said Union minister and Patna Sahib MP Ravi Shankar Prasad also addressed the booth-level workers from the Digha assembly segment through the IT-enabled mechanism on Sunday. Among others, party MLA Sanjeev Chaurasia also conversed with Prasad.