loudspeakers fell silent as a high-decibel vitriol-filled campaigning for 49 seats going to poll in the first phase of Bihar Assembly elections ended on Saturday evening.
Though the electioneering got off to positive start with the two main contenders to power — BJP-led NDA and JD(U)-RJD- Congress alliance — initially singing the development tune, it soon turned into a slanging match, with rivals freely engaging in name-calling.
As campaigning peaked, lalu Prasad’s “Hindus also eat beef” remark was hotly debated, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking to turned the tables on the RJD boss, who had latched onto RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a review of the reservation policy to claim that the BJP-led Centre was contemplating scrapping caste-based quotas.
As lalu and the anti-BJP alliance’s Chief Ministerial candidate Nitish Kumar harped on the alleged move to scrap quotas, rally after rally, to consolidate the backward caste votes, the RJD supremo’s “Hindus also eat beef” remark, made in the aftermath of the Dadri lynching episode, gave BJP and Modi an opportunity to counter one sensitive issue with another.
Modi vigorously stirred Bihar’s melting electoral pot by accusing lalu of “insulting” the “yaduvanshis” (lalu’s own yadav clansmen), who rear cattle, by his comment. “What all is he saying. What all Yadavs eatIJ Whatever position lalu rose to, it was because of these Yaduvanshis and he insulted them. What kind of abuses you are hurling at them. Is it not an insult of Yadavs and BiharIJ Do not humiliate the Yaduvanshis so muchIJ laluji, these Yaduvanshis helped you to come to power,” said Modi, addressing elections rallies in Munger, Begusarai and Samastipur on Thursday.