PM Narendra Modi, CM Nitish Kumar and Congress scion Rahul Gandhi: The three contrasting rallies

PURNEA: Three rallies in a radius of 30 kilometres and within three hours of each other turned out to be as different as chalk and cheese when PM Modi, CM Nitish Kumar and Congress scion Rahul Gandhi landed in Seemanchal on Monday.

Modi rallies are much like a Kumbh Mela, complete with a sea of crowd, a two-three km walk required to reach the venue and a shoulder-to-shoulder jostle to get out. “This ground has also fallen short. What to do? There is no bigger ground in Purnea. Many can’t see me also,” Modi said.

“Only his oratory is good, tabhi zamaana diwana hai inka (that is why people are mad for him),” said an aged Shiv Prasad.

The CM landed 30 km south, at Katihar’s Rajendra Stadium at 10.30 am, to counter Modi’s big rally at Katihar on Monday. Kumar’s rallies are more like open-house sessions, more orderly and sedate, with a mediocre attendance that tends to fill smaller grounds. Women get chairs to sit in a separate enclosure. Kumar makes cogent arguments that appear to register with the crowd.

At 2 pm, as Rahul Gandhi landed in a field in Muslim-dominated Halalpur in Amour, 30 km east of Purnea, the crowd was not big enough to fill the barricaded field — over a quarter of which remained vacant. Given SPG security, Gandhi’s stage was also at quite a distance from the crowd.