At Congress event, Lalu Prasad Yadav says Nitish Kumar is ‘finished’, fight between him and BJP

RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. (File)

Speaking at a Congress function on Saturday, RJD chief Lalu Prasad hit out at his former alliance partner Nitish Kumar and the BJP, saying the JD(U) leader was “finished” and that it would now be a “direct fight” between him and the BJP in Bihar. Accusing the BJP of “using” the CBI and ED to serve notices to him and his “abodh (ignorant)” son (Tejashwi), Lalu dared the investigation agencies to issue similar notices to Jay Shah, son of BJP president Amit Shah.

Lalu was the chief guest at a function organised by the state unit of the Congress to mark the 130th birth anniversary of Bihar’s first chief minister, Srikrishna Singh. Defending the invitation to Lalu, Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Kaukab Quadri told The Sunday Express that the RJD chief had been invited because of his “strong secular credentials”.

Congress leader Akhilesh Prasad Singh, who organised the function, said, “People ask us why we invited Laluji as chief guest. I want to know if we should have invited RSS or BJP or Nitish Kumar instead?”

The RJD chief went on to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the “repressive” NDA government, saying, “Emergency samjhi lagoo ho gaya hai. Loktantra ko khatra bai (Emergency is here. Democracy is under threat).”

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, who was present at the function, referred to the recent presidential polls, in which she was the Opposition’s candidate, and said, “People only spoke about my caste and that hurt me deeply… The time has come to get rid of caste and creed.”