Former Bihar State Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has alleged that India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is leading the country into a civil war-like situation.
In a video posted on Twitter, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) party chief, who is presently out of jail on bail in an alleged fodder scam, said: "The way BJP is functioning, the country is moving toward a civil war. So I call upon the people to unite against inflation, unemployment and corruption in the country."
"We've to fight unitedly and we'll win," the 73-year-old politician added.
Retail inflation in India surged to 7.79 percent in April, its highest in eight years, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation revealed.
Simultaneously, India's unemployment rate rose to 7.83 percent in April, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Yadav had been in prison since December 2017 after being convicted in multiple cases related to a fodder scam that was exposed in 1996.
However, he posted bail in all previous cases. On 20 May, Yadav was booked in a fresh case of alleged corruption by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the country's top probe agency.
Yadav has been criticising the ruling BJP, especially with regards to unemployment, since last year. "Millions of people are being reduced to becoming migrant labourers because of a lack of employment," Yadav had earlier said. Bihar is one of the poorest states in India.