PM BREAKS SILENCE, INVOKES PREZ WORDS

Says Hindus and Muslims should fight poverty, not each other

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has entered the last lap of the campaign for the first phase of the Bihar state assembly elections wearing two hats. One role is that of the BJP’s destroyer, who is expected to wreck the hopes nursed by the grand alliance of Nitish Kumar; the other role is that of the prime minister of a democratic secular country.

As he addressed three rallies for 11 candidates of the National Democratic Alliance, Modi broke his much criticised silence on the Dadri mob lynching of a 50year old man and referred to President Pranab Mukherjee’s remarks made yesterday on communal harmony and brotherhood in the country. Modi said: “I want to tell the people that because of politics and for petty gains, people are making irresponsible statements. I appeal to citizens not to take them seriously. Even if Narendra Modi himself says something like that, don't listen to him. If you want to listen, hear the speech of President Pranab Mukherjee. There can be no bigger thought that that. The President has shown us the way, and we have to walk on that path. Only then will we be able to live up to the expectations of the world”.

At another rally, he gave another strong message. ‘‘In a democracy everyone has the right to speak their mind. But Hindus must decide whether they want to fight Muslims or poverty. Muslims must decide whether they want to fight Hindus or poverty," he said.

Reacting to the statement, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told NDTV: "It is not adequate because he is not responding to the Dadri incident directly. If he has a clear conscience, rather than using the President's statement as an alibi, he should have unequivocally condemned the issue and spoken clearly."

Nitish Kumar also said that this was a brazen attempt to add communal texture to the polls. "The real Modi is on display, he is still silent on Dadri,’’ he said in a tweet and recalled former

prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s advise to Modi to follow ‘rajdharma” in the aftermath of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. The 9–day old Dadri incident has stirred an intense debate on individual freedoms and led to a sharp polarization on the issue. The prime minister, observers said, was doing a tightrope act by avoiding any direct reference to Dadri, as he did not wish to alienate his hard core supporters. Modi on Thursday also targeted his most visible rival, the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, in the strongest possible words picking on the latter’s statement that Hindus also eat beef. Yadav is a strong leader of his community and has been at the forefront of the anti-BJP campaign for decades, After the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat spoke of a need to have a relook at the provision of reservations for the OBCs, a crucial component in this election, the BJP had been looking for a counter argument to smash Yadav’s rhetoric. His comment that Hindus eat beef in the wake of the Dari incident has given the BJP this opening, and Modi went all out to challenge his credentials as a Yadav leader. “Is it not an insult of Yadavs and Bihar? Do not humiliate the Yaduvans his so much? Laluji, these Yaduvans his helped you to come to power," he said. Modi is expected to address another two dozen rallies before the end of the five phased campaign, and his speeches on this issue would be keenly watched during his every outing.