At his Samastipur address, Shah hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for “trying to protect infiltrators” through his ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’. “Let Rahul Gandhi take out as many yatras as he pleases. Each and every infiltrator will be driven out. We welcome the Election Commission’s decision to carry out the SIR exercise across the country,” he said.

He also promised completion of the Rs 85-crore renovation of Punaura Dham, believed to be the birthplace of goddess Sita, within two years and accused the Congress of insulting B.R. Ambedkar. Paying tribute to late Dalit leader Ram Vilas Paswan, Shah praised his contributions to Hajipur and Bihar’s politics.

In sharp contrast, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, launching her campaign in Begusarai, claimed that the “double-engine government” was nothing but a “single-engine rule from Delhi.” “Please do not get fooled. The people of Bihar have no voice, and even Nitish Kumar ji, the Chief Minister, enjoys no respect,” she told the crowd.

Before her rally, Vadra told reporters that the NDA had “failed to deliver” despite two decades in power. In her 30-minute speech, she invoked the scenic yet impoverished landscape along the Ganges, saying, “So much poverty you people have suffered despite so much natural wealth all around.”

Taking on Modi and Shah, she said, “They spend all their time blaming Nehru and Indira Gandhi for Bihar’s problems. They talk of one crore jobs, why didn’t they create them in the last ten years?”

Vadra accused the government of “robbing 65 lakh voters of their rights” by deleting names during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and claimed that Modi’s policies had enriched “a few businessmen friends” at the cost of the poor. “Now they are resorting to vote theft,” she alleged.

She also urged women not to “sell their votes” in exchange for welfare payouts. “Take the Rs 10,000 they offer you, but don’t vote for them in return,” she said, while lauding Rahul Gandhi’s “relentless pursuit of social justice” and the Congress’s historical role in building key national institutions like IITs and IIMs.

The Congress leader also charged the BJP with "opposing" the caste survey in Bihar, the report of which was published while the grand old party was sharing power in the state.

Vadra promised that an INDIA bloc government would replicate the social welfare models of Congress-ruled states such as Telangana. Dismissing the BJP’s “jungle raj” warnings, she said, “Law and order is already bad in Bihar. Look at the murder of a political worker two days ago and the killings of businessmen in recent months, what jungle raj are they talking about?”

(With inputs from PTI)