RJD president Lalu Prasad has decided his party will bank on ‘tamtam’ (tonga or light horse-drawn carriage) to counter its main rival BJP in the coming Bihar Assembly elections.
“The showy BJP will move in big vehicles on four-lane highways. We will move on ‘tamtam’ on civil lane. These ‘tamtams’ will carry our message to every village in the State and help throw BJP on the ground,” Mr. Prasad said.
Mr,. Prasad was talking to reporters after meeting party workers and leaders from Bhagalpur division, comprising of Bhagalpur and Banka districts.
He said the RJD would put 50 such horse-drawn carriages in each Assembly constituency where it would field candidates, and each of them would be given the task to roam in ten panchayats in the constituency during the poll campaign.
“They will make people aware how the BJP has cheated the people with false promises regarding bringing back black money and is trying to introduce a land acquisition law, which will rob our farmers of their land,” he said.
“The BJP wants to grab Bihar. It is spreading communalism in the country. We have to stop it and these ‘tamtams’ will be our messengers in the endeavour,” Mr. Prasad said.
The RJD chief said the ‘tamtams’ would be hired at the rate of Rs.500 per day and help ease the livelihood issues of those driving them.
Exhorting party workers to stay united, the RJD chief said the coming elections would be a fight to decide whether “the country remains intact or breaks up”.
Mr. Prasad charged the BJP of betraying Jaya Prakash Narayan during his ‘Total Revolution’ movement and argued the RSS wrote an apology letter during the 1975 Emergency to the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi so that their arrested cadres could be freed from jail.
“Today the same people are remembering JP. The accusation of dictatorship, which was laid on Indira Gandhi, is now being laid on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as BJP’s senior most leader Lal Krishna Advani has hinted,” he claimed. - PTI
