NDA women’s wings call five-hour Bihar bandh over abuse against PM Modi and his mother.
BJP, JDU and HAM leaders condemn the Darbhanga incident and urge participation.
Tejashwi Yadav calls the bandh “insincere politics” and criticises BJP.
The women’s wings of NDA constituents in Bihar have called a five-hour bandh on Thursday, to protest alleged abuses directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his late mother during the Congress-led “Voter Adhikar Yatra”. According to PTI, the shutdown will run from 7 am to noon. Emergency services are exempt, and organisers said the public should face minimal inconvenience.
The call follows a purported video from the outskirts of Darbhanga, where an unidentified person used a Hindi expletive into a microphone from a dais during the yatra. Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had passed through the town on 27 August, leaving for Muzaffarpur on motorcycles. The accused, a 25-year-old local resident, has been arrested. The Congress-led INDIA bloc maintained he was not a member of any constituent party, PTI reported.
At a joint press conference by leaders of all NDA constituents, BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal said, “All NDA leaders strongly condemned the abusive language used against the PM and his mother from the stage of the RJD and the Congress in Darbhanga. This was not just an insult to Modi’s mother but to all mothers. The women’s wings of the NDA constituents have decided to call a Bihar bandh on September 4 in protest.” Jaiswal dded, “A mother is considered a divine figure. How can a person even think of insulting them?” He urged people of Bihar to participate in the shutdown “and stand against the act committed by the RJD and the Congress”.
JDU state president Umesh Singh Kushwaha said the comments were “not only an insult to democratic traditions but also to the revered position of a mother. The land of Bihar will not spare those who insult mothers and sisters. The NDA’s women’s wing will take to the streets on September 4. This cannot be tolerated.”
Hindustani Awam Morcha state president Anil Kumar said the language from the stage recalled the “jungle raj culture”.
According to PTI, Tejashwi Yadav dismissed the bandh as an example of what he called the BJP’s “impure and insincere politics”. “They are in power and yet they are calling a bandh. The BJP is rattled by the success of our yatra that covered more than 1,300 kilometres across 25 districts,” he told journalists. He said the bandh would only close schools for the day, which also happens during prime ministerial visits. “So, the NDA must be fine with it,” he said.
On the PM’s reaction to the Darbhanga incident, Yadav alleged that Modi “had gone abroad… smiling with foreign dignitaries” and “as soon as he returned home, he decided it was time to weep”. He added, “Nobody condones the insult to anybody’s mother,” but said the BJP had “a lot to answer for” on crude public behaviour, citing remarks such as a “girlfriend worth Rs 50 crore”, comments about Sonia Gandhi, a below-the-belt reference to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s DNA, and abuses by BJP MLAs on the assembly floor.
(With inputs from PTI)
