Pranab's Patna visit date to scuttle Modi rally: BJP

The BJP on Sunday cried foul over the Bihar authorities’ alleged attempt to ‘undermine’ its PM nominee Narendra Modi’s scheduled rally in Patna on October 27 by making President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit overlap with the event.

“The President’s programmes in Patna on October 26 and at Ara on October 27 have been fixed as a ploy to scuttle the rally,” said Bihar BJP legislature party leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

Addressing a press conference in Patna, Sushil Kumar Modi said coinciding the President’s visit with the Narendra Modi rally appeared ‘deliberate’ as the BJP had announced October 27 as the date of its ‘hunkar’ rally more than seven months ago, on March 20.

Claiming the party’s October 27 rally would witness the “largest ever crowd turnout in Bihar’s history”, he hoped the President would reconsider the dates of his proposed Bihar visit. “We’ll bring the matter to his notice,” he added.

Sushil Modi said IIT-Patna’s proposed convocation on October 26, to be addressed by the President, had been timed to prevent rally participants from entering the state capital.

He sought to put the blame for this on chief minister Nitish Kumar.

However, an IIT-P official said a Saturday in October had been suggested by the institution as its preferred date for the convocation, following which the President’s secretariat had approved October 26 for the purpose.