Hajipur: Bitter foes for almost two decades, former Bihar chief ministers Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad today hugged each other as they launched a joint campaign in support of their alliance candidates for the August 21 Assembly by-polls, and took on ruling BJP at the Centre.
Kumar, who had parted ways with Lalu in 1994 and succeeded in dethroning him in Bihar in 2005 in alliance with BJP, said the Narendra Modi government at the Centre knows that it cannot fulfil the tall promises it has made and will resort to spreading religious passion to cling to power.
"They can run government. They cannot run the country. Did 'achchhe din (good days)' come?" he asked, referring to BJP's slogan during elections.
"Achchhe din will never come. But they have come for some people in BJP. In fact, their 'apne din (own days)' have come," said Kumar, who split with BJP last year over his opposition to Modi's elevation as Prime Ministerial candidate of BJP, and quit as chief minister after his party JD(U) was routed in the recent Lok Sabha polls.
He said his alliance with Lalu, whose party RJD also fared poorly in polls but fetched more votes than JD(U), was the need of the hour as the country was in "danger".
Hitting out at BJP, Kumar said it is for the first time that those leaders are in power who did not spend a single day in jail during freedom struggle.
"Our forefathers sacrificed their lives. We all know the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Lohia, Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar... Now those people are in the seat of power who did not spend a day behind bars," he said, in an apparent attack on the BJP's ideological mentor RSS, which mostly kept away from political movements during the freedom struggle.
Hailing the alliance between RJD and JD(U) as 'home-coming', Prasad appealed to Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh to also bury their hatchet and join hands to defeat BJP.
He said if the vote percentage of RJD, JD(U) and Congress in the Lok Sabha poll were added it would be 45 per cent, which is much bigger than BJP which got over 29 per cent vote in Bihar.
Prasad spoke after Kumar in a signal that he is the bigger partner in the alliance which includes Congress at the joint rally at Jamalpur village, 10 km from Hajipur town in Vaishali district and about 25 km from Patna.
The two leaders, popularly referred to as 'Bade bhai aur Chotte bhai' following their drubbing at the hands of BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, also lambasted BJP for failing to fulfil its poll promises of checking price rise and generating employment for the youth amidst cheering by the people and supporters of the alliance.
Prasad said the two parties have come together for the sake of social justice which is threatened by BJP which came to power by "feeding false promises to people".
Kumar said socialists had uprooted Congress from power after Emergency. "But now Congress is no threat and the same socialists will throw BJP out of power."
There was no big leader from Congress at the meeting and the district president of the party Sunil Kumar Singh spoke for it.
JD(U) candidate Rajendra Rai will contest from as the candidate of RJD-JD(U) alliance from Hajipur constituency for the August 21 Assembly by-poll.
Hajipur is represented in Lok Sabha by Union Minister and LJP President Ramvilas Paswan.
Kumar said the rally venue was important as Vaishali had given the world its first republic. "This historical place will send a strong message to the people against BJP."
He said BJP came to power after "hoodwinking" voters with several promises and was now 'intoxicated' with power.
"People started assuming that the day BJP comes to power Pakistan will be shown its place, price of essential commodities will normalise. But did these happen?" he asked.
Referring to BJP President Amit Shah's comments about his sitting in Prasad's lap, Kumar said, "It is natural for him to be frightened because he understands our joint might."
Prasad too castigated Shah for the comment, saying Kumar and he were from the same family and he was the elder brother. "I am his elder brother. He will obviously sit in my lap and not his," he said.
Invoking mandal, a term coined after Mandal Commission report in support of reservation to rally backward castes and Dalits, Prasad said, time had come for all poor to come together again to counter the charge of "kamandal (BJP)".
Attacking Modi, he said the PM is keeping silent after assuming power because he knows he cannot fulfil his promises.
"The country is on the boil over rise in prices of tomato and other essential commodities, CSAT in UPSC examination but the Prime Minister is silent... This is because he does not have any answer to these issues," he commented.
"His taking oath at 6:15 pm proved inauspicious for the country. The country saw the drowinng of over a dozen students in Himachal Pradesh. More recently Kosi belt in Bihar was threatened by flood from Nepal, which coincided with his visit to the Himalayan country.
"He won a lot of praise in the name of running a bullet train and in the garb of it, raised passenger fare," Prasad, who was the railway minister in UPA I, said.
BJP's euphoria over victory in Lok Sabha received a setback in Uttarakhand where Congress won all the 3 seats in Assembly by-election, he said, adding, Bihar would take this forward by ensuring its defeat in all the 10 seats in the August 21 bypoll.
Attacking erstwhile ally Ram Vilas Paswan, the RJD chief described him as 'weather scientist' and also hit out at former RJD leader Ramkripal Yadav for switching to BJP on poll eve and cautioned people against such 'weather scientists'.
Prasad blamed RSS for "communal venom" in the country and promised to maintain communal harmony "at all cost".
Though Kumar and Prasad said their coming together was not a 'big issue', they travelled to the venue separately. Kumar reached first followed by Prasad 15 minutes later.
They also left in separate cars for the next joint rally of the day at Mohiuddinnagar in Samastipur district where an RJD candidate is in the fray.
