Speaker after speaker, including JD president Sharad Yadav and former Railway minister Ram Vilas Paswan, used the occasion to flay the Centre and the Bihar Government for introducing the Patents Bill and Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill, for `unhindered' attacks on Christians in Gujarat and elsewhere in the country and the `jungle raj' in the State.

Yadav told the gathering that the two bills would spell doom for the nation. ``The BJP Government has dithered on its election manifesto, and instead of pursuing the policy of swadeshi, has buckled under World Bank pressure.''``Multinationals would not not have dared come to India if Karpoori Thakur had been alive,'' Yadav said, adding that the so-called heirs of Karpoori Thakur (Laloo Prasad Yadav) had made Bihar ``a corrupt state.''

The JDpresident called upon the people to be prepared for a ``fight to finish'' in order to rid the state's nine crore people from the ``misrule of the Rabri-Laloo combine.''

He claimed that the party's rally here on February 17 -- the death anniversary of Karpoori Thakur -- would prove that people had turned away from the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal that had become ``synonymous with corruption.''

Paswan said the people of Bihar had become disillusioned with the BJP-Samata Party combine, the ruling RJD and Congress and were looking towards the Janata Dal to provide them with direction.

He alleged that the BJP-Samata combine was never serious about imposing Article 356 in Bihar as it deliberately avoided sending back the recommendations for imposing President's Rule once it was rejected by President K R Narayanan.

Paswan added that Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray posed a greater danger to the country's unity and integrity than Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, as propagated by the BJP.

Paswan claimedthat the BJP and Samata Party had forfeited peoples' confidence and the popularity they commanded during the Lok Sabha elections. He said the RJD rally on February 17 would deliberate on several issues such as not holding panchayat elections, corruption, communalism, non-payment of scholarship to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students.

Several other senior leaders, including a minister in the Karnataka Government, Jai Kumar, addressed the meeting.