Lalu demands rollback of demonetisation and GST

Patna:  RJD chief Lalu Prasad today termed the BJP-led regime at the Centre as the government of “hollow promises” and demanded the rollback of demonetisation and GST, which, he said, had adversely affected the people. He said the government had also “understood” that these decisions were “wrong” and hence, it reduced the GST rates on a number of items of mass use recently.

“The Narendra Modi government has proved to be a government of hollow promises (hawabaziwali sarkar). There is an Emergency-like situation in the country. The government implemented demonetisation without giving much thought to it and the entire country faced its consequences,” Prasad told reporters here.

He added that there was an “autocracy-like” situation in the country. “We demand that the government must rollback demonetisation and GST as both have adversely affected the people…Workers, both in the organised and the unorganised sector, lost their jobs because of the autocratic decisions of the government,” the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo said.

Prasad was talking to reporters after filing his nomination before the RJD’s chief returning officer, Jagdanand Singh, at the party’s state headquarters here for the post of its national president for the 10th consecutive term. “This is the 10th (organisational) election of the party.

I have filed nomination for the post of national president,” he said. Prasad was accompanied by senior party leaders Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, Shivanand Tiwary and others at the time of filing his nomination.

The former Bihar chief minister has been holding the post of RJD national president ever since he formed the party, after parting ways with the Janata Dal, and installed his wife Rabri Devi as the chief minister in 1997. He had broken away from the Janata Dal after being chargesheeted in the fodder scam case.

The chief returning officer is scheduled to announce Prasad’s election as the RJD national president on November 21. Stating that the party was facing tough challenges, the RJD chief said the problems it was facing were the same as that of the country today and hence, it was the duty of the party to unite all the like-minded parties in order to oust the communal forces from power as they were the real enemy of the country.

“These people (those in power) are trying to corner me and my family (in cases), but I am not afraid of any such empty threats (bandar ghurki),” he said. Replying to a query about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has talked about bringing “Ram Rajya” by 2022, Prasad said, “Now, they (the BJP government at the Centre) are looking for an extension till 2022. They should first tell the people what have they done over the last three-and-a-half years.” 

In reply to a query at the RJD headquarters earlier that Prasad had said Tejashwi Yadav was the sole contender to the chief minister’s post, senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh refrained from making any comment, asking if anyone could say anything when the national president had given his “ruling”.

Both Singh and Siddiqui said Tejashwi was the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly and in democracy, the LoP was expected to lead the party when it came to power. Singh, however, said only time would tell on the issue as no one changed his horse midway.