Members of Gaya ASC perform at Gandhi Maidan in Gaya and (bottom) chief minister Nitish Kumar at the Bihar Gaurav Rally in Patna City on Thursday. Pictures by Suman and Sachin

March 24: The Bihar Divas festivities showed no signs of slowing down even on the final day of the celebrations. While students of Birla Institute of Technology debated the role of techies, Patna City residents celebrated their glorious heritage.

Patna City, the old part of the state capital, was not left out of the Bihar Divas bonanza as chief minister Nitish Kumar flagged off the Gaurav Rally from the locality today.

“Bihar is known for its jugar technology (indigenous technology with local material) and Patna City is known to be the epicentre of that technology,” Nitish said, while addressing a meeting before flagging off the rally, which was organised under the aegis of the Bihar Chamber of Commerce.

The chief minister added that the residents of Patna City are known for their thoughts and ideas and acknowledged its historical significance.

He said at one time, most parts of the country were governed from the present Patna City. “In fact, Patna City is the actual Patna,” he said, adding that the state was called Bihar as there was bahar (merriment) here. “The wheel of time moves on. No power in the world can stop Bihar from regaining its position and glory,” Nitish said.

The rally started from Malsalami in Patna City and marched on to Mangal Talab.

Road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav, who represents the constituency in the Assembly, said Patna City was historically significant and home to persons like Chanakya and regarded as the father of modern political science and economics. “Patna City is the birthplace of Sri Guru Govind Singh and was once the epicentre of trade and commerce in India,” Yadav said.

Satyendra Narayan Kushwaha, the state BJP secretary and convener of the function, said the government has given the state a new identity. “We would continue to wage our struggle till it is accorded special status,” Kushwaha said.

Spokesman of the programme Pappu Verma told The Telegraph: “Thousands of people from all walks of society, including children and youths, took part in the rally.”

The occasion was, however, marred by a group of people who banged their spoons on empty buckets to signify the erratic water supply in this part of the state capital.

Birla Institute of Technology, Patna, also celebrated Bihar Divas on campus today, where a competition was organised to invite views of the institute’s budding engineers on the topic “The role of engineers in the development of Bihar”.

The institute director K.K. Srivastva said: “Bihar has moved from its old caste-ridden society and is moving forward. Earlier, Bihar was known for all the wrong reasons but now it is the era of positive thinking with the residents involved in the state’s development.”

The districts are also in celebration mode.

A cultural show was organised at Motihari’s Gandhi Maidan on Wednesday night where, befitting the Hindi month of Chaitra (March-April), local folk artistes performed Chaita songs.

In Bhagalpur, bhajan singer Lakhbir Singh Lakha regaled people from 11pm to 3.30am last night at Mataji ka darbar organised by Jai Mata Jee Seva Samiti at Lajpat Park grounds. Audiences, mainly women, got to their feet to the singer’s rendition of songs.