Patna: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present at the launch of Bihar's third agriculture roadmap on Thursday but featured prominently- by mention and omission - in the political subtext that played out at the event.

Two BJP leaders, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and state agriculture minister Prem Kumar, invoked the Prime Minister in their speeches while chief minister Nitish Kumar did not mention the PM even once.

Five leaders delivered speeches at the 70-minute event: President Ram Nath Kovind, Bihar Governor Satya Pal Malik, Nitish, Sushil, and Prem. Delivering the welcome speech, Prem spoke at length about how the past two roadmaps (2008-12 & 2012-17) had boosted production as well as productivity of rice, wheat and maize.

He then linked the third roadmap to the goal set by Narendra Modi to double farmers' incomes by 2022.

"The roadmap would help in realising the goal set by the Prime Minister," Prem said.

Sushil, in his address, mentioned how the regime change in Bihar started taking shape after Kovind's name came up for the presidential election.

He also spoke about the achievements of the past two roadmaps and specially mentioned about the Krishi Karman awards - given by the President to the best-performing states in food grains, rice, wheat, pulses and coarse cereals - that Bihar won in 2012 (rice), 2013 (wheat) and 2016 (maize).

He also mentioned how rice production had gone up from 44 lakh metric tonnes to 83 lakh metric tonnes in Bihar after implementation of the agriculture roadmaps.

He then said the joint efforts of Narendra Modi and Nitish were bound to ensure Bihar's growth.

The chief minister, in sharp contrast, mentioned the Centre only once in his speech - about a meeting convened by the Centre a year after Nitish had come to power in Bihar in November 2005 and in which concern had been expressed over low agricultural produce and productivity in the state.

Recalling the meeting - when Manmohan Singh was PM - Nitish said: "I had replied smiling that Bihar will get rid of this situation and please don't worry about Bihar. Since then the idea of an agriculture roadmap started taking shape."

After speaking about the achievements of the first two roadmaps, Nitish touched on the broad outlines of the third roadmap.# A BJP leader present at the event said: "Our leaders did the right thing. Many schemes to be implemented under the agriculture roadmap would get central funds too. The credit should go both to the Centre and the state."