The Hindu : India is not Gujarat: Laloo

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 25, 2002

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India is not Gujarat: Laloo

By K. Balchand

PATNA Dec. 24. The RJD president, Laloo Prasad Yadav today warned that the BJP's hidden agenda was now out in the open and the people of the country must choose between secularism and communalism.

He termed the BJP's game plan as `dangerous' and asked the party's so-called secular allies to reconsider their stand.

Addressing a press conference, he, however, said the Gujarat strategy would not work in a plural and diverse country as ours.

The RJD chief cautioned the BJP against reading too much in its Gujarat victory. "Delhi is still a distant proposition for the BJP and its allies'' and they would be made to bite the dust in the general elections, which he predicted was not far off.

On the BJP's idea of using the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, as its mascot, particularly in Bihar, he asked "Who is he? And, who have I not made to lick the dust?"

He said "I've handled his aaka(boss)," obviously referring to his stopping the `rath yatra' and putting under house arrest L.K. Advani, almost a decade ago.

"He (Mr. Modi) was then his charioteer and I know how to teach him a lesson."

Mr. Yadav however ruled out getting Mr. Modi arrested under POTA should he visit Bihar.

"We don't have POTA. I'll serve him litti and chokha and ask him settle the issue through a debate. I'll defeat him through my reasoning."

He, however, warned that his Government would not tolerate any attempt to disrupt the law and order and spread communal hatred. In such a case the law would take its course.

He said he would not allow anyone, howsoever big, to fan communalism, even if it meant that the party would have to sacrifice its Government.

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