Mahagathbandhan no match for NaMo’s NDA in publicity blitzkrieg

PATNA: Whatever be the outcome of Bihar assembly election, NDA is clearly far ahead of Mahagathbandhan in terms of publicity blitzkrieg. Few giant hoardings of CM Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad can be seen outside Patna but those of PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and NDA leaders can be seen all over the state.
To counter the recent outsider barb of the Mahagathbandhan, the BJP has even replaced a large number of hoardings featuring Modi and Shah with those of two Union ministers from Bihar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Upendra Kushwaha, HAM-S chief Jitan Ram Manjhi along with BJP’s Sushil Modi, Mangal Pandey and Nand Kishore Yadav.
In terms of hiring helicopters too, the NDA is having an upper hand. It is using at least 10 helicopters on any given day, compared to maximum five by the Mahagathbandhan. On some days, only Nitish and Lalu use helicopters.
BJP sources said every day, NDA leaders, including five-ten Union ministers, are addressing 30-35 election meetings in different assembly segments. “The duration for campaigning is very short this time as the Election Commission squeezed the poll schedule due to festival. It is not possible to cover so many meetings if leaders travel by road. Therefore, we had no option but to use helicopters,” said a BJP leader.
Justifying the large number of posters all over the state, BJP spokesman Vinod Narayan Jha said the hoardings are of all the NDA constituents, not just BJP. “We have LJP, RLSP and HAM-S and posters have been put up by all the allies. Apart from this, BJP has huge presence in almost all the 38 districts and many posters are even put up by supporters, making our presence felt all over the state, unlike the RJD, JU(D) and Congress,” said Jha.
JD(U) chief spokesman Sanjay Singh termed the massive campaigning by NDA a reflection of fear. “BJP and its allies claim to have a strong support base, then why are they using so many helicopters and putting posters all over the state,” asked Singh, adding “We are not going overboard because our support is intact and we just need to make voters aware of the false promises of NDA. Therefore, our posters are much less than that of NDA and use of helicopters is also restricted to two or three.”