Lalu at Bihar Cong HQ: No bump in electing INDIA leader

The RJD chief said a huge rally will be held in the state capital soon by parties opposed to the BJP.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad on Thursday attended a Congress party’s function at its Bihar office, Sadaqat Ashram in Patna, and said a huge rally will be held in the state capital soon by parties opposed to the BJP.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad speaks at the Congress party function to mark the birth anniversary of Bihar's first CM Shri Krishna Singh at Sadaquat Ashram in Patna on Thursday. (HT photo)

The RJD chief, who was speaking at a function to mark the 136th birth anniversary of Bihar’s first chief minister Sri Krishna Singh, didn’t, however, specify if the rally will be held by the new opposition bloc called INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) or the Mahagathbandhan, the ruling alliance in Bihar in which RJD is the largest constituent.

Prasad said BJP will be routed in the upcoming assembly polls in five states, including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattishgarh and Rajasthan, and exuded confidence that the INDIA would form the next government at the Centre after the 2024 parliamentary polls.

“BJP is already facing the heat and the countdown for its defeat has begun across the country. I have been told by senior RSS people that in the 2024 parliamentary polls, BJP would win only one Lok Sabha seat in Bihar — in Patna. The INDIA bloc would form the government at the Centre in 2024 and there will be division of power as per population of the country,” Prasad said.

Paying rich tributes to Sri Krishna Singh, Prasad recalled that when he was in power, he had once told Akhilesh Singh that Bihar’s first chief minister was not being remembered as much as he should be by his own community, Bhumihars, and that they should remember their ancestors.

The RJD chief said he was the one who had the proposed the name of Akhilesh Singh for a Rajya Sabha berth though the latter never asked for it. “When Akhilesh came to meet me in Ranchi while I was in jail, I proposed he should go to the Rajya Sabha. I even called up Congress leader Sonia Gandhi for this,” Lalu Prasad said.

Akhilesh Prasad Singh was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2018. Earlier, he was with the RJD and was elected to the Lok Sabha as the party MP from East Champaran in 2004.

In his speech, the state Congress president recalled how Bihar was described as the “best administered state” during the tenure of Sri Krishna Singh as the CM and also highlighted his contributions towards industrialisation of the state as well as in bringing legislations to abolish Zamindari in the state. “Sri Krishna Singh or Sri Babu, as he was fondly called, always believed in working for all sections of the society and ensured that Dalits enter the famous Baidynath Dham temple at Deoghar,” he said.