Supporters love to call him Chanakya—the ancient genius said to be the architect of first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta’s rise to power, but Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s political strategy to hold his party workers’ conference at the sprawling Patna’s Gandhi Maidan is being described as his “biggest strategic blunder” ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. The chief minister is drawing ridicule from his opponents for poor turnout at this important JD-U programme meet organised on his birthday.

Experts say Nitish, who also happens to be the JD-U president, as such, wanted to put pressures on the BJP, its ally, and make a hard bargain for seats for the upcoming assembly elections by way of displaying impressive turnouts of his party workers at the venue. But the whole idea flopped as his own supporters “ditched” him by choosing to stay away from the function. That is despite the fact that the JD-U ministers and legislators had made enough arrangements for their food, entertainment and also transportation for the visiting guests by spending crores.

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The historic Gandhi Maidan has the capacity to accommodate more than five lakh people but much to everyone’s surprise, barely one-tenth of the Gandhi Maidan could be filled by the JD-U workers during the much-hyped workers’ conference organised on Sunday. That happened despite the big claim by the JD-U that it has made 72,000 booth-level workers. The sparse crowd, not even able to cover the green carpet laid out for the guests, told a sorry tale of how the JD-U is battling hard to get the support of the masses. The only saving grace for the chief minister was that he had named the programme as “workers’ conference”, rather than describing it as the party rally.

The overall situation could be gauged from the fact that party leaders had to ultimately dump a huge amount of food as the number of people attending the party’s conference was much below the JD-U’s expectations. The JD-U had expected large crowds at the function and hence it decided to organise the programme at the sprawling Gandhi Maidan, instead of any conference hall. The opposition is now describing the programme as a super flop.

“We have not seen such a flop show in the past over six decades. Nitish Kumar claims to win 200 seats in Bihar assembly but whether he will win or lose these seats in the elections well explain the turnouts,” says RJD leader Shivanand Tiwari. Opposition leader and RJD legislator Tejashwi Yadav too mocked the crowd at JD-U programme saying the masses fail to turn up at the Gandhi Maidan despite a large amount of money and machinery used by the government.

“Khoda pahad, nikli chuhiya,” commented Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief Upendra Kushwaha while the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) headed by Jitan Ram Manjhi passed even bitter comments. “We don’t understand the logic behind holding workers’ conference at the Gandhi Maidan when the JD-U doesn’t have the workers. Even the booth level workers which the JD-U claimed to have made ditched it,” commented HAM spokesperson Danish Rizwan.

Not only that, poll strategist and former JD-U vice-president Prashant Kishor too took a dig at the chief minister for the poor turnout. “Addressing the “huge crowd” of JDU workers in Patna Nitish Kumar claimed to win 200 seats but did not explain why Bihar still remains the most backward and poor state in the country despite their 15 years of “good governance,” Kishor tweeted.

पटना में JDU workers की “भारी भीड़” को सम्बोधित करते हुए @NitishKumar ने 200 सीटें जीतने का दावा किया लेकिन ये नहीं बताया कि 15 साल के उनके “सुशासन” के बावजूद बिहार आज भी देश का सबसे पिछड़ा और गरीब राज्य क्यों हैं?

Also it was bad on his part not to say a word on #DelhiViolence

— Prashant Kishor (@PrashantKishor) March 2, 2020