PATNA: PM Narendra Modi urging people to light candles or diya on April 5 to defeat coronavirus , on Friday evoked sharp reaction from opposition leaders in Bihar.State’s main opposition party the RJD said the PM in his address failed to respond on the country’s burning issues like how to help poor families and migrant workers who have now reached the verge of starvation due to sudden lockdown.“Modi’s speech badly disappointed poor people and workers across the nation. Though Modi took the name of the poor, he didn't suggest what was his plan to help them out from the current crisis. Modi’s speech also exposed that he neither has any vision nor plan to fight against this catastrophe. His speech badly disappointed us. There was nothing concrete in his speech,” RJD’s national vice-president and former minister Shivanand Tiwari told TOI on Friday.Tiwari further said the PM should have explained as to how poor people who generally reside in single-room size huts, could maintain social distancing, as five to seven people live together in a hut due to poverty.Another RJD leader and former health minister Tej Pratap Yadav , however, took a swipe at the PM's appeal for lighting candles, saying, “People can light even a hurricane lantern.” The hurricane lantern is the election symbol of RJD.Terming the PM’s address a ‘complete nonsense’, his former cabinet colleague and RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha said, “Instead of talking about meaningless things in his speech, the PM should have focussed as to how he was going to solve the acute shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE), surgical kits, masks and ventilators in the hospitals. PM should have talked what is his plan for the rehabilitation of poor and migrant workers.”“If coronavirus will vanish from the country by putting off all electrical lights and burning candle lights and Diya for nine minutes, why did you not use this technique earlier? Why you did so much delay in this technique?” Kushwaha asked the PM.Terming the PM’s call for lighting candles on April 5 as “a skill of event management”, Congress national panellist and MLC Prem Chandra Mishra told TOI that Modi was trying to divert people’s attention from real issues by making a call for doing “unnecessary things.”“Congress President Rahul Gandhi, through his tweets, had been alerting the country about the threat of coronavirus since February. But the PM did not act upon it because his priority was to welcome US President Donald Trump ,” Mishra said.“PM should explain to the nation as to why the decision of lockdown was delayed by a month? Was it not because his priority was to welcome Donald Trump?” the Congress leader asked.