It's yoga of politics, Modi government doing PR through it: Lalu Prasad

PATNA: Criticising the International Yoga Day celebrations, RJD president Lalu Prasad today accused the BJP of indulging in "yoga of politics and not of making the body healthy" and said the Modi government at the Centre is "conducting its own PR through it".

"The entire country knows that this yoga (is) being propagated by the hypocrites of BJP, this yoga is of politics and not of making a body healthy. The Modi government is conducting its own PR (public relations) by advertising something as personal as yoga," Prasad said on a social networking site.

He also posed a question to his followers on whether "the poor in the country need yoga," and quoted an old adage "bhookhe bhajan na hohin Gopala, yeh lo apni kanthi mala" (We cannot pray empty stomach O Gopal, take back this rosary).

Prasad said a World Bank report has pointed out 14 crore people in the country sleep empty stomach and argued, "rickshaw-pullers do not need yoga. Labourers, who toil hard through the day do not need it. Farmers who sweat it out the entire day on their farms have no time for yoga. It is not needed by the poor and people of the weaker section who earn their bread through hard work."

Prasad, who has been leading the charge against the BJP in Bihar after joining hands with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, said yoga was for those who lead a life of luxury without any concern for the deprived and were helping the "capitalists usurp the land of the poor and suck their blood."

Attacking the saffron party, the RJD chief said yoga was for the leaders of BJP who have "become fat on the food grain meant for the poor".

Poking fun at his rivals, Prasad said most of the BJP national leaders and central ministers as well as office-bearers of RSS, need to exercise.

"Amit Shah, Narendra Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Devendra Fadnavis, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Venkaiah Naidu, Harsh Vardhan, Giriraj Singh and several others are all obese. They wouldn't have become so girth, had they been such ardent followers of yoga as they are projecting themselves to be," Prasad said.

The RJD president quipped that those who practice yoga daily have a different physique, so "why all this hypocrisy for a day?"

Prasad, who was meeting party workers from different parts of Bihar as part of preparations for state Assembly elections, clarified he was not against yoga.

"I am not against yoga, but against fooling people through it. Had Nitin Gadkari tried to become fit through yoga, he would not have gone for bariatric surgery at a Mumbai hospital," Prasad added, slamming the BJP for not fulfilling the "impractical promises" and indulging in such celebrations to divert the mind of the common people.