RJD sticks to ‘core ideology’ in shunning Ram Temple event, lets second-rung leaders take fight to BJP

IF THE Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) was the rare party to come out strongly and clearly in support of the Congress decision to stay away from the Ram Temple consecration on January 22, it was not surprising. Since the early 1990s and the beginning of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Lalu Prasad-led RJD’s position on the dispute has been unwavering.

Soon after the Congress announced that it would not attend the January 22 event, labelling it an “RSS-BJP event”, RJD RJD national spokesperson Subodh Kumar Mehta said: “We endorse the Congress line, which aligns with what we have been saying all along.”

Back in October 1990, Lalu, then in his first term as Bihar CM, had ordered his police to arrest BJP leader L K Advani in Samastipur, while he was carrying out his Rath Yatra for the temple from Somnath in Gujarat to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, leaving several incidents of violence in its wake.

This singular action, which had brought down the V P Singh-led Janata Dal government in the Centre as the BJP had withdrawn support to it, had helped Lalu consolidate a Muslim-Yadav vote base, that has held the test of time.

The Muslims were anyway looking for an alternative to the Congress, due to their anger over the Bhagalpur riots the year before under the tenure of Congress CM Satyendra Narayan Sinha.

The Assembly elections in 1990 suggested that the shift in the Muslim votes from the Congress to the Janata Dal led by Lalu in the state, almost lock, stock and barrel. Since then, Lalu and the RJD have centred their politics around social justice and secularism. While Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu’s son and current Deputy CM, added “economic justice” to it by promising 10 lakh jobs during the 2020 Assembly polls, the RJD has stuck to its core