After Bharat Ratna Conferred to Karpoori Thakur, PM to Sound Poll Bugle in Bihar on Feb 4, Address Rally in West Champaran

Within days of the Centre announcing the Bharat Ratna for prominent socialist leader Karpoori Thakur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 4 will head to the eastern state of Bihar, the birthplace of the late chief minister, CNN-News18 has learnt. Modi is all set to launch various rail, road, and petroleum sector projects on his daylong visit.

This will be the PM’s first visit to Bihar this year, with just a couple of months to go for the Lok Sabha polls. This, many say, will be the BJP blowing its poll bugle from the state.

With the Centre awarding the Bharat Ratna to ‘Jan Nayak’ Karpoori Thakur, a champion of the backward sections, the saffron party is confident of doing well in the upcoming elections.

“Out of 36% of the votes which constitute EBCs (extremely backward classes), the saffron party has now been able to ensure that 28% will go en masse with it. Karpoori Thakur was considered no less than a God in Bihar for his contribution to the cause of the backward community,” a BJP leader told CNN-News18.

Many analysts have termed this move a political masterstroke by the Modi-led BJP, which seeks a third consecutive Lok Sabha election win. Even if a “credit war” has broken out on the Bharat Ratna as the demand had been around for decades, they say, it’s the political will of the BJP that has given it the upper hand.

PM Modi also paid an emotional tribute to the former Bihar CM on social media site X.

Sanjay Jaiswal, former Bihar BJP chief, whose constituency will be visited by PM Modi, says there is a palpable excitement among locals. “Even if the venue of the rally is in a rural setting, we are expecting a crowd of more than 1.5 lakh. There is no leader like the PM in this country who can connect with the rich and poor, urban and rural. He is a true embodiment of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Vishwas,” the West Champaran MP told CNN-News18.

Apart from the PM, several top BJP leaders will visit Bihar in the next couple of weeks ahead of the all-important polls. The party’s local unit is firming up plans for Amit Shah, JP Nadda, and Rajnath Singh, along with others.

Bihar elected a BJP-JD(U) alliance government in the 2020 assembly polls. Since then, the state has witnessed constant political turmoil. In August 2022, Nitish Kumar walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), leaving ally BJP in limbo. He joined hands with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress to form the government. Now there’s speculation that he may return to the NDA fold.

The eastern state, which is famous for its caste-based politics, sends 40 lawmakers to the Lok Sabha. At present, the BJP has 17 MPs. Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) has 17. The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), which now has two factions but both supporting the BJP, has six. Five of these MPs are part of the Pashupati Paras camp, while Chirag Paswan is the only MP from his faction.

The BJP has identified a total of 164 Lok Sabha constituencies in the country as “weak seats” where the party hasn’t won in the previous two polls. About 16-18 of these are in Bihar.

The state has seven ministers at the Centre under the Narendra Modi government. Among them are cabinet ministers Giriraj Singh, RK Singh, and Pashupati Paras, along with ministers of state Ashwini Choubey, Nityanand Rai, and Annapurna Devi.