PATNA: Politics in Bihar took a ludicrously eerie turn on Thursday as the verbal exchanges between two prominent politicians suggested the presence of evil spirits influencing public affairs in the state.
After former health minister Tej Pratap Yadav first accused Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi of indulging in black magic to harass him, an enraged Modi paid him back in his own coin.
The 29-year-old Yadav, who is the elder son of jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, had said that he finally vacated the ministerial bungalow allotted to him because Nitish Kumar and Modi had “put ghosts in it”. In return, Modi, 66, described Lalu and his family as ghosts who have been troubling Bihar for long.
“Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi have put ghosts in the No. 3 bungalow. That is why I vacated the building. Whoever now goes to live in that bungalow will be hit by those ghosts,” Tej Pratap Yadav had said on Sunday when journalists asked him why he vacated the posh bungalow six months after ceasing to be a minister.
Tej Pratap, who served as health minister for 20 months as part of Bihar’s erstwhile grand alliance government, had doggedly refused to vacate his 3, Deshratna Marg bungalow when the new NDA government sent him notices. While he finally vacated it, his younger brother and former deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav, 28, is yet to vacate the bungalow that was allotted to him.
“What is the need for anyone to put ghosts for people who are themselves ghosts? Lalu and his family have for long been a scourge for entire Bihar. It was good that Nitish Kumar alienated himself from them,” said Sushil Kumar Modi when asked to respond to Tej Pratap’s allegation.
Modi also urged Lalu Prasad Yadav and his sons not to issue “such light statements that make Bihar a laughing stock”.
Tej Pratap is known as the most religiously minded person in Lalu’s family. He had got a grand puja organised in his erstwhile ministerial bungalow in June 2017 and also got its southern gates closed on the advice of soothsayers.