A day after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar called the controversy around the use of loudspeakers at places of worship as “nonsense”, Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav said he wondered why people had been “discussing loudspeakers and bulldozers, and not inflation”. Tejashwi told reporters in Patna: “Loudspeakers and bulldozers are being discussed, not inflation, unemployment and condition of farmers and labourers. People are being diverted from real issues. Why has there been no discussion on education and providing jobs for millions of youths?” Wading into the loudspeaker controversy, Tejashwi said: “I would like to ask those who make loudspeakers an issue, whether or not God or Khuda existed before the invention of loudspeakers. After all, loudspeakers were invented in 1925 and temples and mosques started using them in the 1970s. Were puja, prayers, bhajans and meditations not performed before loudspeakers came into existence?” Tejashwi added that God existed everywhere and, in every atom, and was not dependent on any loudspeaker. The RJD leader said that those who had nothing to do with the real essence of any religion had been making an issue out of loudspeakers. Meanwhile, former Bihar CM Jitan Ram Manjhi received flak for demanding the installation of Mohammed Shahabuddin’s statue. Manjhi had tweeted: “I pay my homage to former MP Mohammed Shahabuddin who symbolised development of Siwan and ruled hearts of millions of people with his outspokenness. Everyone cannot become a Shahabuddin. I demand state government to install statue of Mohammed Shahabuddin in Siwan.” Replying to Manjhi’s demand, BJP spokesperson Santosh Pathak told indianexpress.com: “What Manjhi said shows his mental bankruptcy. It is a fact that Shahabuddin symbolised terror and it was the NDA government that put an end to Shahabuddin’s reign of terror. A former NDA CM demanding installation of the late don’s statue is ludicrous.”
