PATNA: Ahead of the second phase of the Bihar assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that the people of Bihar “do not want a katta sarkaar”.

“I shudder to hear that the RJD, in its campaign, is getting children to say that they wish to become ‘rangdaar’ (street bully) when they grow up,” he said at a poll rally in Sitamarhi. “People do not want a regime that would put a ‘katta’ on their heads and ask them to hold their hands up. People do not want hands up, but startup, which the NDA will facilitate. The NDA shuns ‘katta’ and promotes school bags, computers, cricket bats and hockey sticks,” he added.

The Prime Minister, who has popularised “katta” as a metaphor for the RJD’s alleged high-handedness, charged the main opposition party with having pointed a country-made, unlicensed pistol at the head of the Congress when the ally was refusing to back Tejashwi Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate.

Speaking on record voter turnout in the first phase of the assembly election, Modi said that it was like a “65-volt jhatka” to ‘jungle raj’. “They are getting sleepless nights,” he added, asserting that people of Bihar have sent a strong message against corruption, misgovernance, and lawlessness that once plagued the state.