Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad on Thursday accused the BJP and the Congress of being hand in glove to decimate regional parties in Bihar. Both the Congress and the BJP-Janata Dal (United) alliance were tacitly working to destroy the State's harmony, he alleged.
Mr. Prasad criticised Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's recent reconciliation over tea with “communal forces.” Criticising Mr. Kumar's breakfast meeting with senior central BJP leaders, he termed the affair “ bhoj ki rajneeti” (mealtime politics), which “started with a controversy at lunch and was promptly resolved over breakfast.”
“Beginning of downfall”
The RJD chief was addressing journalists on the occasion of the induction of some local JD(U) leaders into the RJD fold.
Mr. Prasad declared that this was only the beginning of the JD(U)'s downfall. “Their wickets will fall like ninepins in a 20-20 game of cricket.” He criticised Mr. Kumar's “double standards” in his “personal visits” to jailed MP Anand Mohan's village and his attempts to woo RJD MP Jagdanand Singh into the JD(U) fold. Mr. Prasad said the Congress had no real value in Bihar and, therefore, it “had no right to ask for any vote.”
Justifying his party's alliance with the Congress for five years, Mr. Prasad said the RJD went along with the Congress merely to throw the BJP out of power and to extirpate communal forces. “Other than that, we had no business whatsoever with them,” he said.
“There is no semblance of any organisation within its [Congress] party ranks. Just look at their district offices; they are all defunct,” said Mr. Prasad, adding the Congress was “only a party of leaders.”
Lashing out at the Congress for not implementing the Ranganath Misra Commission recommendations for the welfare of minorities, Mr. Prasad accused the party of “toying with the country's Muslim vote bank” for the last six decades.
The RJD chief reiterated that his alliance with LJP president Ram Vilas Paswan was “unbreakable.”
