Nitish discards opinion polls as 'PR campaign' to boost TRP

With opinion polls on televisions showing him a bad loser in the coming Lok Sabha elections in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday discarded such surveys as a "PR campaign to boost TRP" by "rumour master" and said poll results would send them into "deep shock".

"These surveys are nothing but a public relation campaign beamed on TVs to increase their TRP," Kumar said, addressing a birth anniversary function of veteran socialist leader Karpoori Thakur.

"Some surveys show that more than 63 per cent people say they are satisfied with performance of my government but will not vote for me," he said.

"Have you ever heard somebody saying I am satisfied with your work but will not vote for you?" he said picking holes in the conduct of surveys.

Major poll surveys are predicting only single digit seats to JD-U out of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, half of which they are saying would go to BJP and a substantive increase for Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad.

With JD-U President Sharad Yadav and other senior party leaders on dais, Kumar said he has been in politics for a long time and served as MP six times and understands the politics played by BJP and RSS.

Making a scathing attack on his former NDA ally BJP, Kumar who is nowdays the target of that party for parting company, said Loknayak Jaiprakash Narayan had told them about the real characterstic of RSS.

"It's more than 7-8 parts are inside the soil and only one outside," he said recalling words of JP to describe RSS, ideological fountainhead of BJP.

In an apparent dig at his rival Narendra Modi, Kumar termed him "rumour master" and accused him and the BJP of launching "disinformation" campaign against him.