New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, attacked RJD chief Lalu Prasad over his “Hindus also eat beef” remark, saying that the former Bihar CM has insulted the Yadav community.
Lalu Prasad and ‘jungle raj’ were the two main themes of PM Modi’s election speeches at Munger and Begusarai. He dubbed the grand secular alliance against the BJP as a “mahaswarth bandhan”.
In rallies at both places, Modi, who has been silent on the lynching of a man in Dadri over rumours of his having eaten beef, chose to focus on Lalu’s remarks on beef and said a “shaitan has entered a human body”.
“What all did he eat? It insulted the Yaduvanshis… Laluji these Yaduvanshis helped you to come to power. What all Yadavs eat…is it not an insult of Yadavs and Bihar?” he said.
Modi, who is under attack from the grand alliance for allegedly insulting the people of Bihar through his DNA barb against Nitish Kumar, repeatedly sought to project Lalu’s beef remarks as an insult not only to the entire Yadav community, whose primary occupation has been rearing cows, but to the entire state.
He said that Lalu cannot absolve himself of his beef remark by claiming that it was the “devil” that made him say it. “I want to know how the shaitan got the address…he recognises that it was the shaitan in a similar manner as people recognise their relatives.”
Modi added, “So far we were fighting human beings. Now a shaitan has entered a human body which is after us. Do we have place for such people in Bihar?”
The BJP-led NDA is banking heavily on a division in Yadav votes and has prominently put Yadav leaders like Ram Kripal Yadav and Nand Kishore Yadav to counter the RJD chief’s appeal in the community. That’s because it believes an intact Muslim-Yadav combination could lead to problems for it.
Modi used the occasion of the death anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan to attack Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, saying those who once sang paeans to the socialist leader have now joined hands with the Congress which put JP in jail during the Emergency.
“Congress imposed Emergency and put JP behind bars where he fell ill and as a result passed away early… .Standing by the same Congress, they are now abusing BJP,” he said.
The Congress, he said, is trying to make a “backdoor” entry into Bihar politics by aligning with the JD(U) and the RJD after having lost its own relevance.
(Inputs: Agencies)
