The NDA is fuming over allegedly distasteful comments by a senior RJD leader about Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and the ruling JD(U)’s women’s wing.
The controversial comments set off a fierce battle of words and street protests by JD(U) workers on Saturday.
Sections of a speech delivered by Ghulam Ghous, Leader of the Opposition in the Bihar Legislative Council, at Hajipur were dubbed as both “lewd and misogynistic” by leaders of the ruling JD(U) and BJP. Ghous, a leader not known to have been intemperate with words in public, raised the NDA’s hackles by his speech at a public meeting in which he excoriated the ongoing state-wide Seva Yatra by Mr Kumar and Bihar’s poor law and order situation.
Despite Mr Ghous apologising for his comments, the NDA demanded an apology from the RJD and its leader Lalu Prasad Yadav. JD(U) workers in Hajpur burnt Mr Ghous’ effigy and took out a protest march while the party’s women’s wing protested in Patna. But Mr Ghous ended up freshly angering more JD(U) leaders by his sarcasm-laden comments on Saturday.
Mr Ghous later apologised for his “poor choice of words” and clarified that he was talking about the dangers women in Bihar were facing while travelling in the night despite the government’s claims of an atmosphere of improved security. But JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan accused him of displaying “clear misogyny” and demanded an apology from none other than the RJD chief. BJP MP and the party’s former Bihar chief Radha Mohan Singh described Mr Ghous’s comments as a “legacy of RJD and its leader”.
Overwhelming support of Bihar’s women voters for Mr Kumar’s leadership was a crucial reason behind the NDA’s return to power in the 2010 Assembly polls, in which 10 per cent more women voters cast their votes than in the 2005 polls and surpassed their male counterparts.