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An onion was thrown at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as he was addressing a rally in Madhubani’s Harlakhi area on Tuesday. While it did not reach Nitish, his security staff rushed to shield him.
Nitish was speaking about employment for marginalised sections when the incident occurred at the Madhubani rally, which goes to polls in the third phase. “We will give opportunities to Scheduled castes, Scheduled Tribes, and the Extremely Backward Classes…,” Nitish was saying as the onion was hurled. He was addressing a rally in support of his party nominee Sudhanshu Shekhar at Gangaur village ground in Harlakhi Assembly constituency.
Soon, Nitish responded, “Khoob pheko (Throw more)”, repeating the phrase six times and urging his security men not to pay attention. Later, as his staff appeared to get hold of the person who threw the onion, Nitish Kumar said “let them go”.
Continuing his speech, he attacked Tejashwi Yadav for his promise of 10 lakh jobs, and assured the people that no one will have to go outside Bihar “under compulsion” to look for jobs if he returns to power, as his government would create more employment opportunities in the state.
“I have said that nobody will have to go out of Bihar out of compulsion. Employment will be created for the people of Bihar. When they got an opportunity to work for 15 years… how many people got jobs in those 15 years? 95,000. When we got the opportunity, we gave more than six lakh government jobs to people…,” he said.
#Correction: Onions pelted during Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s election rally in Madhubani’s Harlakhi.#BiharPolls pic.twitter.com/0NwXZ3WIfm
— ANI (@ANI) November 3, 2020
This is not the first time Nitish has had to face public anger at a rally in the campaign this time. At many places a section of the crowd has disrupted his speech, causing Kumar to lose his cool and chide them for “acting on behalf of his political rivals”.
On October 21, in Saran district, he had lost his calm when a section of the crowd had chanted “Lalu zindabad”. “Do not make such noise. If you do not want to vote for us, don’t do it,” Nitish had said, hitting out at the protesters.
WITH PTI INPUTS