Grand Alliance approaches EC against Shah's remarks

'If I am an outsider, what is Sonia?' Modi asks Nitish

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday tried to revive the debate about Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s nationality. In a retort aimed at Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), leader Nitish Kumar’s jibe that the PM is an “outsider” in Bihar, Modi asked whether Kumar would treat the Congress President, too, as an outsider.

Meanwhile, the ‘grand alliance’ parties on Friday approached the Election Commission to demand that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah not  be allowed to campaign in Bihar for his remarks made at an election rally on Thursday. At a rally in Raxaul, Shah had said firecrackers would burst in Pakistan in celebration if the BJP were to lose the Bihar elections.

In Gopalganj, considered a stronghold of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, Modi said: “Nitish babu says I am a bahri (outsider). I will ask him how I can be a bahri in Bihar which is a strong part of India and whose people had voted to make me Prime Minister. Am I Pakistan’s Prime Minister? Am I Bangladesh or Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister? I will ask him if he also calls Madam Sonia, who lives in Delhi, a bahri? Is she a bahri or Bihari? Those who cannot give an account of their work play these games to mislead them.”

In their election rallies on Friday, the last day of campaigning before the fourth phase of polls on Sunday, November 1, Modi and Shah again alleged the ‘grand alliance’ parties were “plotting” to give away a share of reservation enjoyed by the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes to a particular community, a reference to Muslims. Modi pointed out that Nitish had in a speech in Parliament on August 24, 2005 spoken about giving quota to a particular community.

In New Delhi, the Congress and JD(U) complained to the Election Commission that the BJP president’s remarks about “firecrackers in Pakistan” were “inflammatory”. “The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the BJP are trying to polarise the nation and create an atmosphere like during the 1947 days,” said JD(U)’s member of Parliament K C Tyagi.

In Patna, Lalu Prasad alleged the BJP chief was trying to inject “the poison of communalism” in the next two phases of polling, in which the number of minority communities is sizeable in most of the constituencies going to polls.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury demanded that the EC take action against Shah. He charged Modi and the BJP president with “patronising and leading” communal forces.