Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday accused the RJD-Congress alliance of insulting “Chhathi Maiyya” to get votes in the Bihar elections, even as Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi reiterated that a “small pond of clean water” had been built beside the “polluted” Yamuna in Delhi for a photoshoot involving the PM.
On Wednesday, Gandhi had said, “Agar Modi ji ko drama karna hai, Chhath Puja ka drama karna hai, tab paani aa jaayega, video aa jaayenge (If Modi has to enact the drama of Chhath Puja, water and videos will be arranged).”
“When your son (Modi) wants to make Chhath popular across the world, the Congress and the RJD are insulting Chhathi Maiyya. Tell me, can anyone insult Chhathi Maiyya only for votes? Will Bihar and India tolerate it? Will mothers who fast on Chhath tolerate it? How shameless are the RJD and the Congress? For them, this puja is a drama. Will you punish such people or not? Bihar will not forget this insult for the coming hundreds of years … Our Bihar is the land of self-respect. It will never forget those who insulted Chhath Puja,” Modi said in Muzaffarpur in his first election rally after the state’s biggest festival.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah also targeted the Opposition Mahagathbandhan at a rally in Lakhisarai. “Yesterday, Rahul baba came and used some words to insult PM Modi. But by insulting PM Modi, he also insulted Chhathi Maiyya. He said that those who celebrate Chhath Puja do drama. Rahul baba, you will not understand the importance of Chhathi Maiyya. Neither will your mother.”
In Muzaffarpur, Modi sought to contrast this with the “respect” the BJP and NDA have for Chhath Puja, calling the festival “the pride of Bihar and the nation”.
“We are trying to get the Chhath festival added to the heritage list of UNESCO. Will it not make every Bihari proud when it is added there? Will not every Indian be proud?” Modi said, adding that the government will organise a competition of songs dedicated to Chhath, and that the people will choose which are the best. “The writers and singers of the top songs will be felicitated before the next Chhath festival,” he said.
Gandhi, however, continued to target the PM, telling the crowd at a rally in Nalanda, “Two Indias have been created. During the Chhath Puja, Narendra Modi ji decided that he would take a bath in the Yamuna. Did you see the photos? On one side, there is the reality of India and Bihar, where the Yamuna is polluted and is dirty, and on the other side, Modi ji built a small pond of clean water. Clean water was brought from far-off places through pipes so that PM Modi could take a bath in it. People in Delhi don’t get clean water. Modi was supposed to bathe in that. One India is for the rich, the billionaires. And one is for the poor.”
State Congress spokesperson Gyan Ranjan said the PM had disrespected Chhath Puja, not Gandhi. “We are talking of issues like migration, healthcare and education, while the PM is spreading negativity from the stage,” he said.
Congress MP Sukhdeo Bhagat said the PM had “disrespected our culture and tradition by failing to clean the Ganga and the Yamuna”.
The PM also continued to target the RJD and the Congress over “jungle raj”. The RJD government’s poor track record on law and order during its time in power has become a key poll plank of the NDA.
“Today, with prosperity and savings facilitated by revised GST rates, young men in Bihar are investing in motorcycles. This is a far cry from the ‘jungle raj’ era when vehicle showrooms were being shut down … The reason was not that people did not want to buy vehicles, but the fact that leaders of the RJD used to raid showrooms and decamp with looted cars,” the PM alleged in Muzaffarpur. In Chapra, he said that in 1998 a Dalit IAS officer’s wife had written to the Governor alleging she had been “raped” by “RJD goons”.
Modi said Bihar needs industry, which requires land, electricity, connectivity and law and order, adding that the Mahagathbandhan had looted land, kept Bihar in “Lalten Yug” — a dig at the RJD’s symbol — and indulged in corruption. In Chapra, he said there were many factories in Bihar at one time, but they closed down during “jungle raj”.
PM said the two “Yuvrajs (crown princes)” — referring to Gandhi and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, the Mahagathbandhan’s CM candidate — had set up a “shop of false promises”, “One is the Yuvraj of the most corrupt family of India and the other of the most corrupt family of Bihar. They are both out on bail in scams. They have abused Modi a lot yesterday …. They can’t tolerate that a backward person, a poor person who sold tea, has reached this position. But he has not reached because of you; he has reached where he has because of the blessings of the people and the Constitution of Babasaheb Ambedkar … Only greed for power has brought them together. They want to loot Bihar again,” he said.
In Chapra, Modi said a Congress CM in Punjab — referring to Charanjit Singh Channi without naming him — had said publicly that he would not allow Biharis to enter the state and a “daughter of the Gandhi family who is now in Parliament” was seen “clapping with glee”.
“In Telangana and Karnataka, Congress leaders abuse Biharis. In Tamil Nadu, the DMK people harass Biharis. And when this happens, the RJD is quiet,” he said.
Modi also mentioned local icons Rajendra Prasad, poet Ramdhari Singh “Dinkar”, Bhojpuri poet Bhikhari Thakur, and Captain Jainarayan Nishad. The latter was mentioned in a bid to reach out to EBC Nishads, the community of fisherfolk and boatmen. The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) of Mukesh Sahani, one of the top Nishad leaders in the state, is a part of the Mahagathbandhan.
Recalling that his government had developed the “Panch Teerths (five pilgrimage places)” of B R Ambedkar, Modi said in Muzaffarpur that the popular “Bhim App” — a popular app that allows users to make instant payments to each other using the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI — was named after Ambedkar, whose research subject was the rupee.
