-->
Lalu in jail, 2G straw snaps

Lalu in jail, 2G straw snaps

Lalu Prasad with his son Tejashwi outside the Ranchi court on Saturday.
Picture by Prashant Mitra
Vijay Deo Jha, TT, Dec 23, 2017, Ranchi: Hope turned to shock in minutes for Rashtriya Janata Dal supporters on Saturday afternoon when a Ranchi CBI court handed Lalu Prasad his second conviction in a fodder scam case and bundled him off to prison.

Judge Shivpal Singh, who will pronounce the sentence on January 3, acquitted six of the 22 accused, including former Bihar chief minister and Congress veteran Jagannath Mishra, prompting RJD politicians to allege a conspiracy.

Shortly after he and the 15 other convicts had been led to the Birsa Munda Central Jail, Lalu Prasad unleashed a storm of tweets proclaiming himself a victim.

"Had people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Babasaheb Ambedkar failed in their efforts, history would have treated them as villains. They still are villains for biased, racist and casteist minds. No one should expect any different treatment," one of his tweets said.

His son and former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav tried to rouse a dispirited party: "We have the high court and the Supreme Court."

Party leaders and supporters had packed the court premises with high hopes after the back-to-back UPA-friendly judgments in the 2G and Adarsh cases on Thursday and Friday. "We expect justice from this court too," Lalu Prasad had said.
A rumour that the RJD chief had been acquitted sent supporters into raptures from Patna to Ranchi in the afternoon. Inside the court, expectations rose when the judge announced Mishra's acquittal shortly after 3.30pm.

But Lalu Prasad himself seemed to be expecting the worst. Before walking into the courtroom, he had told Tejashwi: " Dekhte rehna ji (Look after the party and the family)."

When the court released Mishra, he grabbed the Congress veteran's hand.

After the blow fell around 3.50pm, he called out to senior RJD leader and former Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh in the courtroom. "We'll see what we have to do. Since we face a battle, we'll fight," he said.

"Lalu Prasad was convicted and Mishra exonerated - this is the game plan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," Raghuvansh told The Telegraph. "We'll fight it legally."

Senior CBI officer A.K. Jha said the agency would examine the verdict before deciding whether to challenge the acquittals.

The case relates to the illegal withdrawal of Rs 89.27 lakh from the Deoghar treasury between 1991 and 1994, when Lalu Prasad was chief minister of undivided Bihar.

He had earlier been convicted and sentenced to six years in another fodder case, relating to the fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury. He has challenged the conviction and was out on bail.

Lalu Prasad faces four more fodder scam cases, three in Ranchi and one in Patna.

0 Response to "Lalu in jail, 2G straw snaps"

Post a Comment

Kalimpong News is a non-profit online News of Kalimpong Press Club managed by KalimNews.
Please be decent while commenting and register yourself with your email id.