Roti should be flipped, or else it burns: Lalu Prasad on change in Bihar

RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad on Thursday, 6 November, called for a change of guard in Bihar, using the euphemism of a roti that must be continuously flipped on the tawa so that it doesn't burn.

The veteran leader, who cast his vote along with wife Rabri Devi and son and INDIA bloc CM candidate Tejashwi Yadav, posted a photograph on X with a message calling for a change of government in Bihar.

"A roti should be flipped on the tawa, otherwise it will burn. 20 years is too long! Now, a Tejashwi government is necessary for making a new Bihar," he wrote.

His wife and fellow former chief minister Rabri Devi also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over law and order issues, recalling his "katta attack" and alleged that BJP members were responsible for incidents of violence. “Narendra Modi ji makes statements on katta (crude countrymade guns) but it is the people of his party who fire bullets, they abduct, fire bullets and kill people. Modi ji doesn’t remember all that,” she said.

The remarks come amid the BJP’s renewed attempts to revive the 'jungle raj' trope throughout the current election campaign — a reference to the crime and corruption that marked the RJD’s rule in the 1990s — as its central campaign message against the Lalu-Tejashwi combine. Yet, Opposition leaders have turned the charge around, pointing to two decades of NDA rule (barring a brief interlude) that have done little to dispel Bihar’s reputation for lawlessness and administrative decay.

Even as BJP leaders doggedly invoke the past, recent years have seen a rise in custodial deaths, gang wars, and political killings, with reports of widespread unemployment, migration, and corruption in policing fuelling discontent. Critics argue that the NDA’s long tenure has normalised the very insecurities it once promised to end.

Lalu’s roti metaphor — earthy, blunt, and accessible — has therefore struck a chord beyond party lines. For many voters, it reflects a growing fatigue with a government seen as stagnant and self-satisfied after 20 years in power. The message is clear: even a roti left too long on one side burns — and so, perhaps, does a state left too long under one regime.

With PTI inputs