Tejashwi Yadav attacked BJP over "Black Day" celebrations. (File)
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav today alleged that the country was going through an "undeclared Emergency" under the BJP-led central government and that the people were witnessing "a black day every day".
Taking a jibe at the "Black Day" celebrations organised by the BJP on the 43rd anniversary of the Emergency imposed by the then Congress government in 1975, he told reporters, "If the BJP really wants to celebrate a Black Day, it should do so every day as the people have been suffering under its rule for the last four years."
"There is agrarian distress, rising unemployment and soaring inflation. Besides, our relations with the neighbouring countries are in a bad shape and our borders are not secure."
The Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly evaded a direct reply to queries regarding his father Lalu Prasad being a product of the anti-Congress movement but now siding with the party and said, "We should look at the present and think about the future."
"The BJP wants to speak of the Emergency. But what about the undeclared Emergency that is in place, wherein anybody who opposes the NDA regime finds himself exposed to risks? Added to that are dictatorial decisions like demonetisation, which made the common people suffer with the elusive promise of clamping down on black money," he alleged.
Asked about his criticism of the anti-Emergency functions, notwithstanding the fact that his father and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad had begun his political career during the "JP Movement" of the 1970s, Yadav said, "No point talking about the past. Let us look at the present and think about the future."
To a query about his recent invitation to Union minister and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) chief Upendra Kushwaha to quit the NDA and join the RJD-Congress combine, he said, "The offer still stands. We are hopeful that he will make up his mind before the (2019) Lok Sabha polls."
Stating that Upendra Kushwaha had tremendous respect for Lalu Prasad, whom he had visited at a Mumbai hospital, where the latter was admitted last month for treatment, Tejashwi Yadav said, "The RLSP chief subscribes to the ideology of social justice and communal harmony. How can he be comfortable with the BJP, which is responsible for the dilution of the SC/ST Act and the growing atrocities against Dalits and minorities."
The RJD heir apparent also claimed that "many leaders in the JD(U), headed by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, too would surprise you in the not-so-distant future. They have grouses against their leader and their endorsement of Kumar's self-goals is just a way of giving the JD(U) national president a rope, long enough to hang him with".