Patna: Rabri Devi and her two sons politics, Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap, stood within social distancing circles on a street in Patna and clanged steel plates with spoons in a sarcastic riposte to the BJP whose Amit Shah was poised to kick off his party's campaign for the upcoming election with a virtual rally here.
With these symbolic gestrues, the political season has reopend in Patna even as the coronavirus continues to run rampant in the state, which is poll-bound later this year. ravage the Assembly election slated to be held this year.
In a preemptive strike against the RJD, the ruling party JD(U) plastered posters in Patna showing Lalu Prasad Yadav and Mohammad Shahabuddin, both of them in jail, clanging utensils in their prison as people look askance. The posters were meant to take the sting out of the show put up by Rabri and her two sons.
The RJD's political campaign, meant to make a point to Amit Shah, is called 'Thali Bajao', a political symoblism invented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he introduced India to the idea of a lockdown.
The guest workers thrown out of livelihoods and walking home to Bihar are the main issue for the RJD in these early weeks, and therefore the protest of the noise plates.
“Guest workers are suffering due to the wrong policies of the government, but the BJP is celebrating. Instead of organizing a digital rally to win the Assembly elections, they should have used the medium to extend relief and support to our poor workers who have returned from other states,” Tejashwi Yadav said after finishing with the thali.
Tejashwi Yadav said the RJD across the state also observed the day as Garib Adhikar Diwas and urged the central and state governments to give Rs. 10,000 each to guest workers as relief.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of his party’s campaign, he said “Amit Shah and Nitish Kumar should inform people about what they have done to generate employment, condition of education, health and law and order in the state through their virtual rallies”.
Senior JD(U) leader and public relations minister Niraj Kumar came out of his official residence to clap in protest against the RJD’s utensil clanging.
Asked about the posters put up across Patna against the RJD, Niraj Kumar said he has no clue about who installed those posters but, “the slogans on these posters have exposed the real face of the RJD”.
