Thousands of people have gathered in Patna on Sunday to witness Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar share the stage at the NDA’s Sankalp rally.
This is the first time Nitish Kumar and Modi will come together on the same platform after they shared the stage at a a political rally in 2009 in Ludhiana.
It is also the first joint rally by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Bihar since November 2005.
During the rally at the Gandhi Maidan, Modi will officially kick-start the NDA’s election campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Billboards, banners, posters and hoardings with pictures of NDA leaders have come up across Patna.
Modi’s first rally in Gandhi Maidan when he was campaigning as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Prime Ministerial candidate in October 2013, was marred by a series of blasts that killed six people and injured nearly 100 others.
The NDA has hired 18 trains and nearly 5,000 buses to ferry its supporters to the Sankalp rally.
Thousands of people were seen chanting “Modi zindabad”, “Abki baar Modi Sarkar”.
Senior Superintendent of Police Garima Malik said nearly 4,000 police personnel had been deployed in and around the sprawling ground.
The police have also set up dozens of watch towers and 60 door-frame metal detectors were installed. Bomb disposal and anti-terrorist squads too have been deployed, Malik said.
Since early this month, BJP and its allies, the Janata Dal-United and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) have been busy touring different parts of the state to mobilise support for the rally.
