Tejashwi defends Lalu over 'Modi's family' remark

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Tuesday charged the ruling BJP at the Centre with diverting public attention by ''Modi ka Parivaar'' rhetoric, which came as a response to his father Lalu Prasad's attack on the Prime Minister a couple of days ago.

Yadav told reporters that BJP leaders suffixing ''Modi ka Parivar'' to their names on their social media profiles reminded him of ''Main Bhi Chowkidar'' rhetoric ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had coined the slogan ''chowkidar chor hai''.

''I am glad that the words of Lalu ji have so much impact,'' remarked the former Bihar Deputy CM sarcastically, adding: ''But what about issues like poverty and unemployment that he had raised? He spoke of so many things''.

Prasad, who is the RJD's founding president, had on Sunday told a rally here that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ''no family'' of his own, in a bid to rubbish the latter's criticism of ''parivarvad'' or dynastic politics.

Yadav said, ''The PM claims that he treats the entire nation as his family. If that is so, why did his government try to crush, so brutally, the recent farmers' protests in Delhi?'' He also read out a short Hindi poem, a rough translation of which said: ''The country has 80 crore unemployed people and 120 crore citizens are reeling under price rise. All families are unhappy, yet they claim all are family''.

Yadav also defended his father for the remark that Modi is ''not a true Hindu'' as he did not shave his hair and beard after the death of his mother.

''We are a devout Hindu family with a temple at our home where Aarti is performed every morning and evening. I got my daughter undergo the mundan (tonsure) ceremony. Why the PM chose not to follow the well establishment tradition, is for him to answer,'' said Yadav.

The RJD leader, who lost his job as Deputy CM when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the JD(U) president, snapped ties with his party, also trained his guns at the NDA government in the state.

''When we were sharing power, we ensured job creation and better remuneration for Anganwadi workers. There were many other proposals which have been hanging fire under the NDA, which seems to have no other agenda except abusing me and my family,'' alleged Yadav.

He also claimed that the budget presented by the state government last month had ''many documents signed by leaders from my party and the Congress''.

''After all, we held most of the Mahagathbandhan ministry portfolios. The BJP, since coming to power in Bihar, has hardly made any contribution. So problematic has been its hurried alliance with Nitish Kumar that cabinet expansion has been on hold for more than a month,'' said Yadav.

Replying to a query about Lok Sabha polls, he asserted that the Mahagathbandhan, comprising RJD, Congress and three Left parties, ''will win all 40 seats in the state'' and a seat-sharing formula will be finalised ''very soon, much before the NDA is able to do so''.

He claimed that the BJP's ''inability to announce a single candidate for Bihar'' in its first list which contained close to 200 names, betrayed troubled waters in the NDA.

Yadav, however, ducked queries about Chirag Paswan, who is locked in a fierce battle with uncle and Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras, whose Lok Sabha seat of Hajipur he wants to claim for himself as the ''true heir'' to late father Ram Vilas Paswan.

The RJD leader, who has been perceptibly soft towards Chirag Paswan, said ''I am not going to switch sides. If anybody wants to join us it is for him to say''.

Speculations are rife that Chirag, a bete noire of Nitish Kumar, has been uneasy over the latter's return to NDA and if his claim on Hajipur was not accepted by BJP, he might dump the alliance.

Yadav bristled at BJP's repeated taunts about the RJD having drawn a blank in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and said, ''We have been the single largest party in the last couple of assembly elections. We were close to forming our own government but for the state administration which acted in a partisan manner''.

He asserted that the RJD would seek legal remedy if the Bihar assembly Speaker Nand Kishor Yadav failed to take action on complaints against MLAs who crossed over to NDA during the recent budget session.

Asked about the BJP's charge that people had turned up at the Mahagathbandhan rally on Sunday ''for money'', the RJD leader shot back: ''Then let them unleash ED and CBI on lakhs of people who had come''.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)