Though the national president of Janata Dal United and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday did try his level best to sketch a very dark picture of the 15 years of rule by his predecessors Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi yet his speech could not generate much appreciation–if social media is any yardstick to gauge the mood of the people.The live event broadcast-ed through various YouTube news platforms and JDU social media pages has seen quite low response from people. Further cause of concern for the party is that the event is being disliked by overwhelming number of viewers.*
Party sources said that though the Janata Dal United sent the link to an estimated 26 lakh people the number of those who listened to and watched it remained in thousands. The irony is that the LED screen put up near Income Tax roundabout, not far away from the newly spruced up Janata Dal United office in Patna was not functioning. If this was the situation in the Bihar capital one could only imagine the response of the people across the state.
The Sep 7, virtual rally of Nitish was the first such exercise by his party in the poll-bound state. The chief minister recalled how bad the law and order situation was in the state during those dark days when lantern, according to him, was used after sun-set and nobody would venture to go out. Only those having the security arrangement could dare to come out after the sundown, he claimed.
He made loud claims of the development works taken up in the last 15 years of his own rule, especially in the field of irrigation and environment recently. He made special reference to the proposed plan to take Ganga water to south Bihar and make check dams to overcome the water crisis in Gaya, Nawada, Nalanda districts etc. Nitish did not forget to mention the case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and said that the state government recommended the CBI probe on the request of his family members.
*(Number of views/likes/dislikes of some of the YouTube channels which covered the virtual rally is as follows: Live Cities: 75160/3300/ 12000; Zee Bihar Jharkhand: 35000/675/4500; First Bihar: 5638/280/362; News18 Bihar Jharkhand: 4353/108/249. The numbers were taken in the late evening, it might change afterwards.)
