'So far we were fighting human beings. Now a shaitan has entered a human body which is after us.'
Wading into the beef controversy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, October 8, attacked Lalu Prasad Yadav over his 'Hindus also eat beef' remark, saying the Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo had insulted the people of Bihar and his own community, the Yaduvanshis, who brought him to power.
Addressing a poll rally in Munger, Modi, who has been silent on the lynching of an Indian in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, despite widespread outrage and the debate over the beef ban, latched onto Lalu's remarks on beef and said a 'shaitan (devil) has entered a human body.'
'What all did he eat? It (the remarks) insulted the Yaduvanshis... Laluji these Yaduvanshis helped you to come to power. What all Yadavs eat... is it not an insult of Yadavs and Bihar?' Modi asked.
Modi, who is under attack from the RJD-Janata Dal-United-Congress alliance for his DNA barb against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, repeatedly sought to project Lalu Yadav's beef remarks as an insult not only to the Yadav community whose primary occupation has been rearing cows, but to the entire state.
Insisting that Lalu Yadav could not absolve himself of his beef remarks by claiming that it was the shaitan on his tongue which made him say it, Modi said, 'I want to know how the shaitan got the address (of Lalu Yadav)... he recognises that it was the shaitan in a similar manner as people recognise their relatives.'
Ridiculing Lalu Yadav's remarks that it was the 'devil under whose influence' he made the beef remarks, Modi said, 'so far we were fighting human beings. Now a shaitan has entered a human body which is after us.'
Repeatedly referring to Lalu Yadav's remarks, the prime minister asked the gathering, 'Do we have place for such people in Bihar?'
Modi also used Jayaprakash Narayan's death anniversary on Thursday to attack Nitish Kumar and Lalu Yadav, saying those who once sang praises of JP had now joined hands with the Congress which had sent JP to prison during the Emergency and dubbed the RJD-JD-U-Congress alliance as a 'mahaswarth bandhan (alliance of opportunism)'.
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