BJP has tasted blood, got power by pitting Hindus against Muslims: Lalu Prasad Yadav

By PTI

PATNA: Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday launched a vitriolic attack on the BJP, which he accused of pitting Hindus against Muslims (Ram aur Rahim ke bande), and likened it to a beast that has “tasted blood”.

Addressing party workers here through video conferencing, Prasad, who has been in Delhi since his release from jail a few months ago, also expressed “strong condemnation” for the incidents in Lakhimpur Kheri district of BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, where a car allegedly belonging to son of a Union minister ploughed into a crowd of agitating farmers.

The former Union minister, who had been an MP for many terms before getting barred from contesting elections in 2013, also lamented the lack of unity in the opposition and asserted that the BJP could be defeated if all parties opposed to it could keep their flock together.

Prasad, who had to step down as the Bihar chief minister in 1997 because of the charge-sheet filed against him the fodder scam, also predicted an “early fall” of the Nitish Kumar government, which returned to power in the assembly elections last year.

The outspoken OBC leader, a mascot of pro-Mandal politics, also expressed outrage over the Centre submitting before the Supreme Court that it would not be able to enumerate the numerically powerful social group despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi having hinted otherwise during a meeting with an all-party delegation from Bihar, headed by Kumar and including Prasad’s son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav.

He claimed that the BJP has looked down upon affirmative action and declared, “We will fight and see to it that caste census is undertaken and policies are formulated taking population of different castes into account”.

The septuagenarian also appeared to place a lid on the controversy triggered by the declamation of his elder son Tej Pratap Yadav that the RJD supremo was being “held captive in Delhi and prevented from visiting Bihar”, remarks which were seen as the mercurial leader’s outbursts aimed at his younger, but more powerful, sibling Tejashwi.