New Delhi, Feb. 21: After his relentless attack on Twitter, RJD chief Lalu Prasad took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the electoral arena today while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli for the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance candidates.
Lalu predicted the BJP was set to lose in Uttar Pradesh as it did in Bihar and said the defeat would mark the end of the Modi government. "If BJP faces defeat in this election, it will be the end of the Modi government," Lalu said, exhorting people to vote for the SP-Congress alliance for Uttar Pradesh's development and in the interest of the country.
Lalu equated Modi with Donald Trump and said he looked like a "twin brother" of the US President. Lalu said like Trump, Modi was unpredictable and added that the entire country was upset with the decisions taken by his government. "Modi is the twin brother of Trump. The entire country is upset with his decisions like demonetisation," he said.
Before he set in to campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Lalu had relentlessly targeted Modi, much more intensely than any SP or Congress leader, on micro-blogging site Twitter. He had taken on Modi over his graveyard-cremation ground and Ramzan-Diwali comments at a rally in Fatehpur on Sunday.
"The Prime Minister should rise above feelings of party and prejudice. He should speak of love instead of confrontation, of bringing people together instead of dividing them and of development instead of destruction," Lalu tweeted on Monday. "The country hasn't seen such a Prime Minister who pins his party symbol on his chest and talks about religion and caste to incite people's feelings," another Tweet from Lalu said.
The RJD chief had countered Modi aggressively during the Bihar elections of 2015 and many feel that Uttar Pradesh lacked such a leader from the SP-Congress camp. Lalu had made a big issue out of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's remarks on reservation and it is believed that the RJD boss's assertive campaign on the issue had consolidated the backward castes behind the RJD-JDU-Congress Mahagathbandhan and led to the BJP's big defeat. Lalu reportedly had gone to campaign in Rae Bareli on the request of the Congress.
The RJD chief slammed Modi even on his comment that though he hailed from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh had adopted him. " Mitron, 65 saal ke bridhawastha me koi kisi ko god leta hai kya? Leta hai kya mitron? Gujarat ne liya hai kya? UP ko murkh samjha hai kya? (Friends, at an old age of 65 does anyone adopt anybody? Does he? Has Gujarat adopted? Do you think UP is a fool?)" Lalu tweeted last Friday taking a dig at Modi's style of asking questions and use of the word "mitron". The Bihar leader also charged Modi with being a dictator and remarked that he would divide the country.
Lalu told the voters today that victory of the SP-Congress alliance was essential to dislodge the Modi government at the Centre and stressed the need for a wider coming together of the Opposition parties against the BJP.
