The soft and hard facts of Narendra Modi’s speech

The apparent softness shown by the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi towards RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his bitter criticism of friend-turned-rival, Nitish Kumar, have raised a serious question: whom is the BJP considering itself the main enemy in Bihar?

It is natural for the party to feel cheated by the betrayal by Nitish Kumar. So when the Gujarat chief minister was critical of him it is understandable. But why is it that Modi did not criticize Lalu Yadav, though he repeatedly referred to the Jungle Raj days.

Modi appeared somewhat grateful that it was none else but Lalu Yadav who invited the journalists to inform that it was, of all the persons, the Gujarat chief minister who rang up to inquire about his welfare after he met with an accident. Later Modi even went on to say that there is need to spread the message of Krishna.

Some political observers are of the view that Modi said so to placate the Yadavs, who form a strong votebank. BJP feels that with Lalu in jail RJD would become weak and the Yadavs would in that case look towards the saffron party. As Yadavs still love Lalu Yadav it would not be fully appropriate to criticize him too much.

But then there is another interpretation of the whole development. It is that Nitish is already weak; thus the actual fight is with Lalu Yadav, who is once again emerging as an alternative.

But since there is some general sympathy for the RJD supremo after his conviction and disqualification it would not be good to criticize him in the manner Nitish was treated in the 55 minutes long speech. Besides, it is a fact that Lalu Yadav––notwithstanding being a bitter political rival––never betrayed the BJP after being friend for 17 long years.

As per this interpretation of the speech It would be wrong to say that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate was actually soft towards Lalu. He repeatedly referred to the Jungle Raj, which was nothing but criticism of the Lalu-Rabri government. Modi even went on to state that his party suffered all insult and humiliation of Nitish Kumar right from November 24, 2005 till June 16, 2013 to keep the Jungle Raj away. It was on November 24, 2005 itself that Modi was not allowed by Janata Dal (United) to come to Bihar to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Nitish Kumar. Modi even made reference to it.

So Modi in a way gave more time to flay RJD’s Jungle Raj and said that if he had joined hand with Nitish it was simply because of the bigger threat posed by Lalu Yadav.