The public protests faced by chief minister Nitish Kumar recently and indications that the JD(U) and BJP may snap ties in Bihar seemed to have lent new vigour to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, who on Wednesday resumed his Parivartan Yatra tour and lambasted the NDA government.
Embarking on the fourth phase of his tour of Bihar, which would take Mr Yadav to some of the places where Mr Kumar met severe protests during his Adhikar Yatra last month, the RJD chief and former Bihar strongman said the seven-year old JD(U)-BJP government’s failures and corruption were now fully exposed. He asked his party colleagues to start preparations for handling the process of a possible shift of power in Bihar.
“They (NDA) made malicious propaganda against me all the time, telling lies that I abused the upper castes and that there was jungle raj in Bihar during our government. But the situation in Bihar is out of control. You saw one of their leaders brandishing a gun at the people and the wombs of thousands of innocent women being fraudulently removed by doctors,” said Mr Yadav at a public meeting at Munger that was hugely attended despite a spell of rain.
Mr Yadav, a former chief minister of Bihar who also served as the railway minister during UPA-1, was welcomed by large groups of people on the way before reaching Munger. Such display of public gatherings around the 65-year-old leader brought new hopes among RJD leaders and workers.
He accused the NDA of having tampered with the EVMs during the last elections to throw the 15-year-old RJD government out of power and described the “massive rise of corruption and crime” in Bihar in recent years as “goonda raj”.
“They (JD-U and BJP) will not win more than two or four seats this time (in the LS polls),” he said on Tuesday.
Mr Yadav is scheduled to visit Bhagalpur, Khagaria and Begusarai, among other places, during the current phase of his tour.