Thursday, May 01, 2003
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By K. Balchand
The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav, and the Bihar Chief Minister, Rabri Devi, displaying a lathi at the rally in Patna on Wednesday. Photo:Ranjeet Kumar
While a BJP man was killed this morning even as RJD supporters marched to the historic Gandhi Maidan, an RJD worker died in yet another incident of group rivalry last night. There was no backlash of the two killings, however, on the rally. In fact, the lathi-brandishing rallyists remained disciplined. Satyanarayan Sinha, who unsuccessfully contested the Danapur Assembly byelection on a BJP ticket last year, was gunned down during a battle with the RJD's Reet Lal Yadav at Jamaluddin Chak under Danapur police station about 15 km from here. Sinha's supporters went on the rampage burning down a dozen vehicles carrying RJD supporters to the rally attacking the residence of the father-in-law of the Chief Minister, Rabri Devi's daughter, Misa Bharati. The rival groups continued to exchange fire, despite the presence of police who fired in the air to prevent the situation from deteriorating. Last night, Raj Kumar Yadav, cousin of the former MLA and RJD leader, Ranveer Yadav, convicted in the Taufir Diara massacre in which nine persons were killed in 1985, was killed by unidentified criminals. At the rally, the RJD supremo, Laloo Prasad Yadav, charged the BJP with inciting and spreading violence saying his supporters had been fired at even as they emerged from the house of his daughter's in-laws. Mr. Yadav's clarion call to his supporters was clear: be armed and prepared to defeat the Opposition in the coming elections. His wife Ms. Rabri Devi was more forthcoming: "You have to have a lathi in each house and protect your booth in the elections." Resenting the BJP's objection to the use of lathi, Mr. Yadav said, "for them the trishul, the talwar and the bandooks are okay. But not the lathi. If you want to the do away with the lathi, then remove the lathi from the statues of Mahatma Gandhi." While Mr. Yadav sought to paint the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, as a stooge of the U.S., Ms. Rabri Devi said the people should seek an explanation from the BJP for its "step-motherly" treatment of Bihar with the lathi. It was lathis all the way and they came in all shapes and sizesThe RJD workers struck at each other's lathis creating sounds like gunfire. Resolutions were approved by raising lathis unlike the usual case where hands are put up. PTI reports: Describing the BJP as the fountain-head of ``communal politics'', the rally, christened as "BJP bhagao desh bachao aur Bush bhagao vishwa bachao rally", accused the Vajpayee Government of trying to divide society along communal lines. The ``BJP wants to replicate the Gujarat formula in the next Lok Sabha elections. This shows the fanatical and fascist face of the party in power at the Centre." "The Vajpayee regime would go down in history as the most corrupt, weak and ineffective government ever," Mr. Yadav said. He assailed the Centre for its proposed scheme to inter-link rivers, saying states such as Bihar and Assam, endowed with huge water resources, would be adversely affected. "We will never allow the Centre to succeed in its evil design to rob us of this vital resource," he said with his cheering supporters waving lathis in approval.
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