Election campaigning in Bihar took a sharp religious or cultural turn on Monday, November 3, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to frame the opposition Mahagathbandhan of the RJD, Congress and others, as being anti-Hinduism.
They juxtaposed an alleged insult to the traditional Chhath festival with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav’s family celebrating Halloween.
At multiple rallies for NDA candidates, PM Modi and home minister Amit Shah launched sharp attacks, accusing the opposition of disrespecting Hindu festivals and prioritising Western culture and “infiltrators”.
The BJP reacted at first to a video of veteran leader Lalu Yadav, whose son Tejashwi is the MGB’s CM face, celebrating Halloween with his grandchildren at home. The visuals, shared by his daughter Rohini Acharya, showed the children dressed in costumes, including one as a Grim Reaper, while Yadav laughed with them.
The BJP immediately highlighted Lalu Yadav’s remark from February that the Kumbh pomp was “meaningless” (“faltu”). The BJP’s farmers’ wing wrote on X: “Don’t forget, people of Bihar, this is the same Lalu Yadav who called the grand festival of faith and spirituality Kumbh useless, and is now celebrating the foreign festival Halloween.”
This line of attack intensified with Amit Shah explicitly linking the RJD-Congress combine to an insult against Chhath festival, which is prominent in Bihar and was celebrated just days ago.
At a rally in Shivhar, Shah said: “Rahul Gandhi has just insulted Chhathi Maiya (mother deity).” He was referring to Gandhi’s claim that PM Modi got a clean pond created for himself next to the polluted Yamuna in BJP-ruled Delhi to “do drama” on Chhath. “This time, along with Modi, you have insulted Chhathi Maiya,” Shah said.
Prime Minister Modi also weighed in, accusing the RJD-Congress combine of being disdainful towards Chhath Puja, “while opposing the Ram temple at Ayodhya” and being soft on “infiltrators”. Speaking in an area with significant Muslim population, Modi did not allege a communal angle directly but said that INDIA bloc or Mahagathbandhan parties were “compromising national security” and had “jumped in to protect infiltrators” whenever the BJP took steps to oust them, news agency PTI reported.
Priyanka Gandhi mocks Modi over insult claims
In response to the BJP’s focus on alleged insults of PM Modi, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra mocked him, suggesting he should create a new ministry, the “Apamaan Mantralaya” (Ministry of Insults).
Addressing rallies in Saharsa and Lakhisarai districts, she accused Modi of diverting public attention from critical issues like unemployment, corruption, and poverty by constantly targeting his opponents.
“Instead of talking about development, the PM keeps accusing every opposition leader of insulting the country. He should form a new ministry, ‘Apamaan Mantralaya’, because that’s what his government seems most focused on,” she remarked.
She said that whenever the public asks the PM a question, he either ignores it or “starts crying that everyone is insulting him”. She stressed that he should instead answer the people of Bihar regarding the alleged misrule under the NDA government over the past two decades in the states.
(with ANI and PTI inputs)
