Janata Dal (United) national president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh on Saturday refused to apologise after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being duplicitous about his caste and even went on to allege that the PM added his caste to the OBC list during his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister.
"Sorry for what? What foul word did I use? In which dictionary are 'Bahurupee', 'Dhongi' unparliamentary language? What'll you call someone who takes different forms & tries to mislead people by furnishing wrong facts. I haven't used unparliamentary language," JD(U) chief Lalan Singh said.
Earlier in the day, the JD(U) leader also attacked the central government over the issue of unemployment and inflation after attacking the PM.
Singh on Friday said, "In 2014, Narendra Modi roamed the country saying he was from the Extremely Backward Class (EBC). There is no EBC in Gujarat, only OBC. When Modi became Gujarat Chief Minister he added his caste to OBC. He is a duplicate, not an original." Stating that BJP is a "messy place", Singh said that those who left BJP and joined JD(U) did a good job.
"Inflation is never discussed, but Cheetah is discussed. Will the cheetah go hungry? Employment has been destroyed. The central government has no control over inflation. PM Modi never sold tea, does he even know how to make tea," Singh added. Notably, the Income Tax (IT) department on Friday conducted raids at multiple locations in Patna, including the Shivpuri, Patel Nagar, and Boring Road premises of builder Gabbu Singh. Builder Gabbu Singh is a close aide of the JD(U) chief Lalan Singh.
The development has come months after Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar broke ties with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and joined hands with the opposition to form a "Mahagathbandhan" alliance in the state and took oath as Bihar CM for the eighth time. It was in 2020 when the BJP-JDU won the election in alliance with each other in Bihar and Nitish Kumar was made the chief minister despite BJP being the single largest party. In less than two years' time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a 'Grand Alliance' government in Bihar. The political scenario in the state has changed since Nitish Kumar broke the alliance with BJP and staked a claim to form a government with RJD.
Nitish Kumar had on Friday vowed that he would never ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party again. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of an engineering college built at a cost of Rs 75 crore in Samastipur, the Bihar chief minister said he will work for the progress of the country along with Bihar.
Kumar hit out at the saffron party for targeting him since the split of the BJP-JD(U) alliance in August this year and alleged that the former ally is trying to create a conflict in the Mahagathbandan. "BJP people keep talking nonsense. I had left Mahagathbandhan and joined the NDA (in 2017), but now I have returned. The BJP wants that the conflict among us should rise to such an extent that we become frustrated. The BJP is attacking me nowadays," he said.
