Setting aside the weight of the RJD’s electoral debacles in Bihar and its rapid organisational decline that followed, party chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday mounted resolute attacks on the Nitish Kumar-led government and announced his bid to recapture power through “agitations for change”.
At the RJD’s national executive meeting at a posh Patna hotel, an unusually aggressive Mr Yadav spoke out against the BJP and its prime ministerial contender Narendra Modi, vowing to keep them out of power, but devoted the bulk of his speech on the failures and ills of Bihar’s JD(U)-BJP coalition government. Shorn of his recent edginess and familiar tendency for trivialisation, Mr Yadav elaborately dwelt on Bihar’s burning issues such as spiralling crime and alleged incidents of corruption. “We are now set to begin all-out agitations for change all over Bihar. Our party and Bihar’s people will dislodge the thoroughly corrupt and incapable government of Nitish Kumar, who has become dictatorial and imposed a rule by bureaucrats instead of elected representatives,” said Mr Yadav, his composure and attention to details more obvious than his recognisable phrases of rustic humour.
He said he would visit all parts of Bihar and hold public meetings in the nights if the government tried to disrupt such “peaceful agitations” in the daytime.
“Besides, there is no electricity in Bihar except a few places in Patna. So we will hold our meetings in the light of the lanterns,” he said.
The lantern is the RJD’s poll symbol. Citing recent incidents of murders and the frequency of violent public protests, Mr Yadav insisted that Mr Kumar’s claims of Bihar becoming a crime-free state with fast economic growth and less corruption were lies propagated by manipulating a section of the media. “We will not allow any curbs on media freedom,” he said.
Although his verbal vigour at a press conference showed his strong optimism about the RJD winning back power, he said he had no plans to become Bihar’s chief minister again, hinting that one of his children would get the job. The absence of RJD LS members R.P. Singh, Jagdanand Singh and Umashankar Prasad Singh and Mr Yadav’s wife Rabri Devi brought the party’s smouldering internal conflicts to the fore.