Days before the scheduled notification for Bihar polls, a mammoth turnout at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally at the airport ground, while making the opponents sit up.

• BHAGALPUR: Days before the scheduled notification for Bihar polls, a mammoth turnout at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally at the airport ground here, while making the opponents sit up, intensified the guessing game over the contest in the politically most pumped up elections of the year.Thousands of people poured into the small town for the rally, shattering all the turnout records for the region and proving right the organizers who decided to shift the venue from Sandy's Compound, the standard setting for public meetings.In terms of sheer numbers, the crowd was bigger than what RJD and JD(U) could mobilize from the entire state at Patna's Gandhi Maidan on Sunday.The size of rallies in Bihar, or for that matter anywhere else, has never been a reliable indicator of public mood.

• In the Lok Sabha elections when Modi powered the BJP to sweep the rest of the state, the party lost in seven - Katihar, Madhepura, Kishenganj, Araria, Bhagalpur , Purnea and Supaul out of eight seats.

• Pleased by the size of his audience, Modi said the numbers were a pointer that political pundits would do well to actor in when they get down to forecasting the outcome of the Bihar polls: a contest which has widely been billed as crucial for the BJP , the one which the party must win to regain the momentum it lost because of the debacle in Delhi in February.In his speech, which was quite low-key in comparison to his fiery orations in the previous Bihar rallies, Modi kept his focus on development: a discipline which many felt was meant to blunt the bid of "secular alliance" to mobilize OBCs by resurrecting the Mandal plank.The RJD and JD(U) have nothing to offer, Modi said, claiming that BJP had forced its rivals to talk of development.

• Referring to the attacks on him by Lalu, Nitish and Congress chief Sonia, Modi said: "Such big leaders came together at Patna's Gandhi maidan and could only chant Modi, Modi, Modi, Modi."

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