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Lalu takes a dig at PM Modi over teleprompters at Bihar rally
Lalu Prasad’s twitter handle is operated by his team while he serves a jail sentence in a fodder scam case.
Pictures tweeted by a Bihar BJP leader showing teleprompters near PM Narendra Modi’s lectern during a rally in Bihar on Sunday have elicited a sharp response from Opposition leader Lalu Prasad.
“The great public of Bihar, which always upholds justice, cut them down to size. When a man watches his plan fail, he can utter any type of falsehood, come up with all sorts of jumlas. Possibility of a defeat in Bihar has so badly shaken confidence that a speech teleprompter has been installed even though the address is being made in Hindi,”, the RJD leader, whose twitter handle is operated by his team while he serves a jail sentence in a fodder scam case, wrote.
The pictures of the Prime Minister addressing the rally were tweeted by Bihar health minister Mangal Pandey.
Lalu Prasad also took a dig at the turnout at the PM’s rally on Sunday saying that he attracted bigger crowd whenever he stopped by at a betel shop on the roadside.
This evoked an angry response from Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who taunted Prasad over allegations of corruption and patronage to criminals.
Prasad through his tweets targeted the Sankalp Rally, which served as the first occasion for the prime minister to share a stage with the RJD leader’s arch rival Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
The NDA in Bihar at present constitutes the BJP, Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party.
“Narendra Modi, Nitish and Paswan exerted themselves for months, even used the government machinery to ensure a handsome turnout at Gandhi Maidan. The number of people who gathered there was about the same that I get flanked by whenever I stop my car at a paan ki gumti (betel shop). Try harder gentlemen, get the cameras zoomed (in) a bit more,” Yadav said mockingly in his first tweet.
Sushil Kumar Modi came up with the riposte: “Everybody knows what type of crowds flanked the one whose rule was known for irregularities in purchase of fodder for cattle, B.Ed degrees awarded to young people aspiring for a career in teaching, and bitumen used in construction of roads. Clowns too are known to attract crowds.”
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had in January mocked Prime Minister Modi for using a teleprompter for delivering speeches in English.
“People think he speaks good English. But does he speak it? He simply reads out written speeches with help of teleprompter,” said Banerjee
“You people should know about teleprompter. A transparent glass is placed in front of him. People cannot see it but the media persons know everything about it. We all know.
“One can simply read out from written speeches. We do not indulge in such practice. We speak impromptu, doesn’t matter whether we speak well or poorly,” the Trinamool Congress chief said.
Mamata has been targeting Modi over several issues in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
