After comeback, Lalu threatens nation-wide stir against Modi

The grand alliance’s euphoric victory in the Bihar  Assembly elections has resurrected the political career of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo  Lalu Prasad Yadav, making him emerge as the kingmaker. The RJD performed the best in the elections, the results of which were announced on Sunday.

However, despite his party’s outstanding performance, Yadav, in a press conference that he addressed later in the day, reiterated his pre-poll promise that Nitish Kumar would continue as the Bihar Chief Minister. He added that he would launch a nation-wide stir against the “communal” Narendra Modi government.

Exultant after the JD(U)-RJD-Congress alliance appeared on course to a resounding victory, a jubilant Yadav claimed that the continuance of the Modi government would “break the nation into pieces”.

Accompanied by a smiling Kumar, his foe-turned-friend, Yadav said: “We will continue our fight. There will be such a long-term impact of Bihar results on the national politics that you cannot imagine. The Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) government will be demolished. I will also go to Varanasi (Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency) with a lantern (RJD’s election symbol).”

Even as the RJD emerged as the single largest party, Prasad said it was a victory of the grand alliance and not of one party. “If anyone wants to sow the seeds of division among us, we won’t let that happen. We are not going to be divided for the next 10 lives,” he said in his inimitable style amid cheers from JD-U and RJD workers and supporters.

On his nation-wide stir, Yadav said he would take together farmers, labourers and other deprived sections of the society “to uproot the communal Modi government. They have been chased out of Bihar”. 

The grand alliance government will work for the fast development of Bihar and put it on the national map in economic progress, he said.

Yadav also referred to the intolerance debate and US President Barack Obama’s advice to Modi on the importance of religious tolerance.

“Barack Obama was invited to the Republic Day parade. He flogged the government while leaving when he made the remark that the society should not be divided in the name of caste, colour etc. He said India should be kept united even after he returned to the US and reminded the government that even Mahatma Gandhi would not have liked such things,” RJD supremo said.

During his India visit in January this year, Obama had made pitched for religious tolerance and said every person has the right to practise his faith without persecution and that India will succeed so long it is not “splintered” on religious lines.

The war of words between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yadav had made headlines  during the poll campaign, with the PM calling the former Bihar Chief Minister a shaitan (devil). Yadav launched an even more blistering attack against the PM and dubbed him as a brahma pishach (super demon).