Ruckus in Bihar Assembly over report of FIR against Lalu Prasad in land-for-hotels case

Lalu Prasad Yadav

The Bihar Assembly witnessed a ruckus today as the opposition RJD members trooped to the Well raising slogans, alleging that their jailed chief, Lalu Prasad, was being “falsely implicated” in corruption cases by the CBI, forcing an adjournment of the House for the day.

Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary adjourned the House for the day, minutes into the post-lunch session, as RJD spokesman and MLA Bhai Virendra got up from his seat and alleged that Prasad was being “falsely implicated” by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in corruption cases, triggering slogan-shouting by the opposition legislators.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shravan Kumar tried to intervene by pointing out that the issue raised by the RJD MLAs pertained to a central probe agency and not the state Assembly.

The opposition MLAs, however, got furious when Water Resources Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh said the newspaper report, on the basis of which the RJD members were raising the allegations, was actually critical of Prasad, “though the headline suggests otherwise”.

As the sloganeering persisted for around 10 minutes, the speaker adjourned the proceedings till Monday.

Earlier, in the morning, the RJD MLAs shouted slogans inside the House, waving copies of the report published by a leading English daily, which claimed that an FIR was lodged by the CBI against Prasad in the land-for-hotels scam, despite the agency's legal wing expressing the opinion that there was “no evidence” against the RJD chief.

Prasad is currently lodged in a jail at Ranchi, following his conviction in a couple of fodder scam cases.

The opposition members claimed that the newspaper report proved that Prasad was being "framed" in corruption cases as part of a "political conspiracy" and that the probe agencies were acting upon instructions from the NDA regime at the Centre.

Talking to reporters outside the Assembly after the House proceedings were adjourned till 2 pm, Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav said, "The newspaper report vindicates our stand that Lalu Prasad and his supporters are being harassed in the name of corruption cases.

"In the so-called land-for-hotels scam, an FIR has been lodged, even though there was no irregularity. This is a clear indication that the investigating agencies are acting under political pressure."

Stating that it was the right and duty of the opposition to draw the government's attention towards its own failings, the RJD leader said, "The tardy functioning of the probe agencies is a glaring example of a government's failing and we wanted to point that out on the floor of the House.

"The Nitish Kumar government too owes an explanation on a number of issues such as the extension granted to Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, who has been named as an accused in the fodder scam by the CBI court, and the involvement of Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi's close relatives in the multi-crore-rupee Srijan scam.