Rs 20,000 crore spent so far on PM Modi's rallies in Bihar: Tejashwi Yadav

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday continued with his "pickpocket" jibe, claiming that a staggering Rs 20,000 crore has been spent on rallies addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bihar so far.

The BJP also sharpened its counter-attack, with posters being put up across the state capital bearing the slogan "Mera baap chaara chor, mujhe vote do" (my father stole fodder meant for cattle, vote for me), belittling the leader of the opposition who leads the INDIA bloc in the upcoming assembly polls.

The young leader, who had a day ago raised the hackles of the ruling NDA by alleging that exorbitant ticket fares of Vande Bharat made Modi look like a "pocketmaar" (pickpocket), used the expression again in a stinging social media post.

He alleged that rallies of Modi in Bihar, since 2014, have cost "Rs 100 crore each" and there have been "200 such public meetings" so far.

"So the total amount splurged during the period, which has also seen five elections (three Lok Sabha and two Vidhan Sabha), is Rs 20,000 crore...many such meetings have been organised by the government even though the objective has been, clearly, electoral," the former Bihar deputy CM claimed.

Notably, Modi was in Siwan district on Friday, which was his fifth visit to the state this year, the second in less than a month, and said to be "51st" since taking over as the prime minister.

Yadav, who seemed to be in no mood to give up his tirade, alleged, "What should we call a person who cleverly uses public money on his own publicity...and pretends to be a man of integrity?... Of course, pocketmaar, not madadgaar (a helper of the people)." The BJP, which takes on the RJD in the assembly elections due in just a few months, retaliated with full force.

A day after BJP's former state unit president and Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary had sought to berate Yadav by using the famous line from the blockbuster 'Deewaar' - Mera baap chor Hai (my father is a thief) - in an obvious dig at RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's corruption taint, the party engaged in a "poster war".

In the posters, which the party has not officially owned, the colourful slogan is inscribed next to a caricature that shows the father-son duo riding a buffalo, an obvious reference to the fodder scam.

The conviction in the fodder scam has left Prasad, a former chief minister and an ex-Union minister, disqualified from contesting the elections.