Patna, May 15: The thrust of Lalu Prasad’s speech at the Parivartan rally here today was on calling for the overthrow of the Nitish Kumar government and introducing his two sons to the electorate.
Towards the first goal, he said the government thrived on bribery and corruption. “Be it getting the caste or birth certificates, homes under Indira Awas Yojana, old age pension and below poverty line (BPL) cards, the poor are forced to cough up bribes for everything,” the RJD boss said. He also called Nitish Kumar “a pet parrot of the communal RSS-BJP”, who, he alleged, “had turned a Nelson’s eye on Muslim youths picked up from various parts of the state on the pretext of their involvement in terrorism”. His eyes were, of course, on the Muslim vote, the core of his once devoted MY (Muslim-Yadav) voters.
Lalu wore a namazi topi, apparently to strike a chord with the Muslim masses who constitute 16 per cent of the state’s electorate. Nitish, too, is eyeing the same electorate, by distancing himself from the BJP over Narendra Modi.
After listing out the problems, he hinted at the road ahead, in the form of a question. “What will our sons do? Will they (our sons) pick up the lotus symbol of the communal BJP instead of the lantern, the symbol of our secular party?” His inimitable style of introducing his sons drew cheer from the crowds.
He didn’t stop at GenNext in his own house, his sons Tejpratap and Tejaswi. Lalu described Raghunath Jha, Shakuni Choudhary and other party leaders as part of “RJD family” which would like its sons and daughters holding aloft the lantern.
But mindful of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s description of the parivartan rally as Lalu’s effort to carry out a generational change, Lalu wondered aloud, “We do not know what his (Nitish’s) son does. People know that Tejaswi plays cricket. We are transparent to our people, the eventual masters to decide on who will lead them”. But other RJD leaders like Shakuni Choudhary were already saying there was nothing wrong in politicians’ wards stepping into their fathers’ shoes by reeling off examples of Ajit Singh (Charan Singh’s son), Omar Abdullah, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav.
By the time the chief minister returned from a meeting with Planning Commission members in New Delhi, he seemed to have forgotten his earlier utterances on the rally. “I have no information about the Parivartan rally. Since the benefit of the state was at stake, I did not seek any information about the rally. Organizing rallies is the right of all political parties,” he said.
On criticism on the state’s law and order condition, he said the common man was feeling the impact of improved law and order in the state.
If Wednesday’s attendance was any indication, it needed some introspection. Gandhi Maidan can accommodate three lakh people. Compared to Nitish’s Adhikar rally last November, Lalu’s rally might have been smaller. But one needs to account for the day’s unbearable 38.3°C temperature and a weak RJD (just 22 MLAs) as against November’s wintry sun. Thousands, comprising the Yadavs, Muslims and upper caste Rajputs drawn from almost all the parts of Bihar, braved the harsh summer to hear Lalu. They lustily cheered through his hour-long speech- rhythmic, rhetorical and rustic as usual.
Despite peppering his speech with with earthy anecdotes, wild rhetoric and typical Bhojpuri slangs, the RJD boss was focused on his diatribes against Nitish and BJP. He deliberately skipped mention of the growing hostility between the JD(U) and BJP, UPA ministers resigning on the charges of corruption and other issues in the country.
He called upon all “secular forces” to unite and overthrow the Nitish regime.
nLalu Rally, Page 4
