Patna, August 23: The Rashtirya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad on Friday refused to be dragged into the controversy raging within the Bharatiya Janata Party after the expulsion of senior leader and former Union minister Jaswant Singh.
Singh wrote a book on the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, in which he also held the first prime minister and home minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, respectively responsible for the partition of the country.
Talking to the newsmen on Friday he said it was between the BJP and Congress. The book holds Nehru and Sardar Patel responsible for the partition. Let the Congress and BJP fight it out, he said.
Lalu, however, took a dig at the BJP by stating that it was not Jaswant Singh but the BJP which has insulted Patel by comparing Lal Krishna Advani with him (Patel). BJP had earlier said that Advani was a greater Loh Purush than Patel, he reminded.
On the remarks of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi that he has a friendly relationship with him (Lalu) and Ram Vilas Paswan, the RJD chief remarked that he has a friendly relationship with every one.
“I fight political battles, not personal battles,” he said, stressing that he enjoyed a rapport with chief minister Nitish Kumar, too. “That is why I scolded him as an elder brother when he ate biscuits during the solar eclipse on July 22. As an elder brother, I have the right to scold my younger brother,” Lalu added.
On the drought situation in Bihar, Lalu said the situation was grim. “People should not rely either on the Centre or the state for relief,” he warned, stressing that both the governments were incapable of giving relief to drought-hit people.
Suggetsing that people should observe fast for at least one day a month, Lalu said: “I will also observe fast for a day.” He said deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi should get raids conducted to prevent hoarding. The RJD chief also flayed the state government on the recent incident of kidnapping in Khagaria district in which the victim was killed and his kidney taken out.
Commenting on the arrest of Janata Dal (United) leader Vijay Krishna, Lalu said that the former MP should have surrendered much earlier. “What is the use of running away from law? If he is innocent, he should have said it in court. His son is yet to be arrested,” he remarked.
What is strange is that two seasoned politicians Ram Karan Sahni and former MLA Ramakant Pandey joined his party at the time when everyone is jumping off the RJD thinking it as a sinking ship. Both the leaders criticized the Nitish Kumar government, and charged that the voice of the downtrodden is being throttled. Sahni switched over to RJD from the ruling JD(U).
–Agencies