Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued to target RJD chief Lalu Prasad at two rallies in western Bihar on Friday.
“He [Mr. Lalu Prasad] thinks he is the Big Boss and can make anyone dance to his tunes… If the grand alliance comes to power, Mr. Lalu Prasad will run the government with remote control,” he said, speaking at a meeting in Aurangabad.
Mr. Modi reminded the people of Mr. Lalu Prasad’s conviction in the fodder scam. “You all should ask him why he is out of the contest this time... What has he done that he is not being able to contest in the elections? What crime has he committed that the judiciary has debarred him from contesting elections?”
“All that Mr. Lalu Prasad does every morning is to look up the dictionary for a new abuse to be used against me. Now, even the dictionary is not enough. So they have to coin new terms,” he said.
Mr. Modi also took a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. “Whenever we talk about ‘jungle raj,’ Mr. Nitish Kumar, not Mr. Lalu Prasad, is disturbed. It is Mr. Nitish Kumar who had called Mr. Lalu Prasad’s regime ‘jungle raj,’ but now he is objecting to the use of the term. Does Bihar need jungle raj again, in which cars are lifted, people kidnapped and the houses of the poor captured? Should Bihar go back to the same old frightening days,” he asked.
The Prime Minister reiterated that 4,000 cases of abduction were reported in the State between January and July this year and referred to the incident of an IPS officer being shot at in Patna on Thursday night. “If a police officer is not safe, how will the common man be? Jungle raj has already started when they [Mr. Lalu Prasad and Mr. Nitish Kumar] joined hands. What will be the fate of Bihar if you commit the mistake of voting for them?”
At Sasaram, Mr. Modi said Mr. Nitish Kumar had betrayed Jitan Ram Manjhi, a Dalit, by removing him from the post of Chief Minister. Mr. Manjhi was present on the dais with other NDA leaders. Mr. Nitish Kumar “has committed the sin of backstabbing the son of a Dalit… He backstabbed him for his personal gain, and his arrogance will eventually defeat him,” Calling the grand alliance a coming together of “selfish people for the greed of power,” Mr. Modi appealed to the people to “teach them a lesson” in the elections.
