Lalu Prasad

New Delhi, Aug. 11: Pushed to the political fringes, RJD chief Lalu Prasad today tried to make a mark in the Lok Sabha by raising the banner of revolt against gay and lesbianism but ended up looking like a member of the saffron brigade.

Lalu sought to join the issue with the BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi, who used the financial crisis in the US and Europe to caution the government against toeing the western economic model, but drifted to sound like a right wing moral police. In a sweeping remark, he slammed Valentine’s Day, Internet, Facebook, slut walk and said these western ideas were vitiating the great Indian ethos.

The focus of his attack was gay and lesbianism. Lalu lodged his protest in a crude fashion.

“Mahila mahila se shadi karegi... Purush purush se shadi kar raha hai... Dilli high court ka ek faisla aaya aur hamne accept kar liya... aage nahi gaye… ye rishi muniyon ka desh hai” (woman will marry another woman… man is marrying another man… Delhi High Court gave a judgment in this regard… We (MPs) accepted it quietly… did not go ahead… This is a country of saints and sages), Lalu said, inviting protests from some members.

Lalu was unstoppable, though. He even disregarded repeated requests from Deputy Speaker Karia Munda to be brief. “Aap suniye… aapka kaam sun-na hai… Desh barbad ho raha hai (You listen. Your job is to listen. The nation is rotting),” he told Munda. Lalu used words typical to the BJP leaders and sought to present himself as a vanguard of “Bharat Mata” and “saints and sages” of India.

“Sara desh ro raha hain... Rishi, maharshi ro rahe hain… Bharat ki bhoomi swarg se bhi badi hai aur ye dharti rishi muniyon ki maani gaye hai jo Bharat Mata kahte hain… Aaj Bharat Mata ke saamne kya ho raha hai (what is happening in front of Bharat Mata)?” Lalu said and went to talk about slut walk being organised in Delhi.

Talking about the slut walk, he said thousands of youths paraded naked on the streets of Delhi with tattoos on their bodies. Terming it a serious danger to the country, he demanded a discussion on the issue.

When the Chair asked him to wind up, Lalu talked about erotic sculptures in Sun Temple (Konark) and Khajuraho. He graphically described the sexually explicit sculptures and said they were meant to incite the sexual appetite of the masses to reproduce as the population had sharply dropped.

“Hum sabse pehle surya mandir gaye the… Wahan humne charo taraf nangi tasweeren dekhi... Hume kafi aascharya hua ki bhagwan ke ghar me nangi tasweeren… Tarah tarah ke aashan kyon hai Khajuraho ke mandir mein (I first went to Konark temple and saw naked sculptures. I wondered why they were there in a temple. Why different poses are there at Khajuraho?) ,” Lalu said, leading to guffaws in the House.

Some MP from the back remarked about Lalu’s nine children, but the RJD leader chose to ignore and go ahead.

Lalu wondered how many such temples now have to be built to accommodate the kind of nudity in the society. He said if urgent measures were not taken India’s culture and tradition would be wiped away.

After his speech, Lalu went to the BJP benches and chatted for a long time with Shatrughan Sinha, Shahnawaz Hussain and others. They were seen bursting into peels of laughter.