After riding roughshod over the Congress, his junior alliance partner in Bihar, RJD president Lalu Prasad on Tuesday sought to conceal his iron fist in velvet gloves, saying he still considers the grand old party "the national alternative".
Prasad, who has returned to his home turf of Bihar after three years, said the country needs the Congress, and underscored nobody has "helped" the national party as much as himself, blaming the recent bad blood on "small time leaders" (chhutbhaiya neta).
The ailing septuagenarian's averment came on the heels of the Congress' announcement of going it alone in Bihar in the next Lok Sabha polls after the RJD unilaterally decided to field its own candidates in Tarapur and Kusheshwar Asthan assembly seats where by-elections are underway.
Prasad, who suffers from multiple ailments, said he will himself be touring both constituencies on Wednesday, the penultimate day of campaign, where his son Tejashwi has "done a great job, I will just be giving the finishing touches".
"There will be a stampede in the ruling NDA after our victory in the two seats. The BJP-led coalition achieved power by manipulating results of the assembly elections last year," he alleged. Taking potshots at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his arch rival whose JD(U) seeks to retain the two seats, Prasad said, "The man once had prime ministerial ambitions. With his dwindling popularity, the BJP and Narendra Modi must think what to do with him." The RJD supremo, who is known for sharing excellent personal equations with Sonia Gandhi, was also asked about the stand-off with the Congress which many speculate is a result of the insecurity his son and heir apparent Tejashwi supposedly feels about former CPI leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who is about the same age, lacks a support base of his own, but shows potential with his crowd-pulling oratory. Kumar recently joined the Congress. "Nobody knows the Congress as much as I do. Nobody has defended it as much as I have, helped it as much as I have. It is a national party which is obviously the alternative to the BJP…… It's chhutbhaiyas who are spoiling everything," said Prasad in an oblique reference to Bhakt Charan Das, the AICC in charge for Bihar, whose aggressive stance has taken the domineering RJD aback.
The RJD supremo called Das a bhakchonhar (stupid person) a couple of days ago, drawing flak for using the Bihari pejoarative, with Congress leaders like former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar stating that Prasad could be booked under SC/ST Act for using foul language against the Dalit leader. Veteran BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, a bete noire of Prasad, in a tweet asked the Congress to "give up taking insults from Lalu" and challenged Sonia Gandhi to "announce that ties with RJD were over". Although the Congress is now contesting both assembly seats, its anger stemmed primarily from the RJD throwing its hat in the ring in reserved Kusheshwar Asthan constituency. Fighting in alliance with the RJD and the Left, the Congress had lost the seat to JD(U) by a thin margin in the assembly polls and was hopeful of wresting it back.
The RJD's contention was that among all constituents of the Grand Alliance, Congress stood out for a dismal strike rate, winning less than 20 of the 70 seats it had contested. Although the RJD has never won Kusheshwar Asthan ever since it was reserved for the Scheduled Castes in 2008, it is confident of springing a surprise as it has given ticket to a candidate belonging to the Musahar community, which has a sizeable presence there, remains politically under-represented, and is known to be hostile towards Yadavs, Lalu Prasad's fellow castemen and primary supporters.
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