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One year of Narendra Modi government marked with Bihar rally

Union minister Nitin Gadkari has been battling allegations by Oppn that the Land Bill is anti-farmer

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Union minister Nitin Gadkari, a key campaigner to defend the contentious land acquisition bill, will be fielded in election-bound Bihar to project steps taken by the Modi government when it completes one year in power on May 26.

Besides Gadkari, an MP from Nagpur, Union ministers who belong to Bihar will fan out across the state on May 26 and 27 to hold public meetings and press conferences, sources said.

Gadkari has been in the forefront of the government's battle to counter the Opposition campaign that the land acquisition bill was anti-farmer. Interestingly, he, along with BJP chief Amit Shah, is meeting RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Nagpur on Saturday.

It was Gadkari who was given the task of explaining the government's stand on the land acquisition bill in Parliament, at the party's national executive in Bengaluru last month, and convincing ally Shiv Sena.

At a recent programme in the BJP headquarters in which senior ministers addressed spokespersons, Gadkari, whose subject was the land acqusition bill, refuted the Opposition stand and said the bill was pro-farmer and pro-growth. He asked spokespersons to go on the offensive, aggressively countering the Oppposition and telling the people that the changes made by the Modi government were "aimed at benefiting farmers and ensuring overall development."

The decision to send Gadkari to Bihar, which is headed for a high-stake election later this year, is part of government's strategy to fight "perception" on issues like the land acquisition bill, sources said. The first electoral battle after the government completes a year in power, Bihar will be the test for the NDA's economic agenda. The party leadership, which is turning its focus on Bihar, has asked MPs from the state to visit five villages in the state every day.

Among the other senior ministers, Arun Jaitley will be in Gujarat, Rajnath Singh in Rajasthan and Sushma Swaraj in Madhya Pradesh. In Uttar Pradesh, the other politically crucial state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself will be in Mathura to address a rally on May 25.

Gadkari has also been fighting on another front-- the allegations of corruption in the CAG report relating to Purti Group. The government and the minister himself have denied them saying it was a political conspiracy against him.

In the list of achievements that the ministers and party leaders will project on the first anniversary is also "clean governance" as against the scams in the previous regime, besides highlighting the flagship schemes. Sources said the government wanted the ministers to concentrate on districts, instead of state capitals.

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