Veteran leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is gradually enhancing his public engagements following the kidney transplant he had some months ago, was at his humorous best as he addressed the media at the culmination of the two-day meet of the INDIA bloc parties.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief had the audience in splits as he took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the typical Lalu manner. He referred to Modi having attacked rival parties and their leaders for being corrupt in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and promising to bring back the money they had been allegedly stashed away in Swiss banks.
“Modi said that he will bring money back from the Swiss banks and put Rs 15 lakh in every account. I was also fooled by this. I also opened my account. My daughters and sons and my wife, 11 of us, opened accounts. The whole country opened accounts. But not one rupee was brought back. Their money only is deposited in the Swiss banks,” Lalu said.
He then went on to congratulate the scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation for the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission and suggested that they should now endeavour to take Modi to the sun. The obvious reference was to ISRO's solar mission Aditya-L1.
“I appeal to ISRO scientists to ensure that Modi is not left behind in any way. They should take him to Surya Lok. They can do it after Dusshera. He will be more popular globally if he goes to the sun,” he said.
He recalled having taken up a strong stand against Modi when the Gujarat riots took place in 2002. He started off by saying, “You (Modi) and your guru...” and struggled for a moment to recollect the name of the 'guru'. Somebody asked if he was referring to L.K. Advani, and he promptly responded, “No, I had got him (Advani) arrested.” He then said he was referring to Amit Shah. In this context, he also said, “Vajpayee was a good leader. He had told Modi that he should follow ‘raj dharma’.”