Congress throws its weight behind ex-CM, Nitish mum
PATNA: Even as the ruling Janata Dal (U) continued to maintain a studied silence on the CBI raids on Lalu Prasad and his family members, the other partner of the Grand Alliance in Bihar, the Congress, extended its support to the RJD “in its hour of crisis.”
Chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is at Rajgir reportedly due to health reasons, extended his stay and was likely to return by Sunday evening or Monday morning. On the other hand, Congress leaders flocked to Lalu’s residence soon after opposition presidential candidate Meira Kumar left Patna.
“The BJP government is targeting all those who oppose it. Everybody knows the credentials of (BJP chief) Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” said Bihar Congress president Ashok Choudhary.
He backed Prasad’s defence that his son and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad, who was among those against whom the CBI had filed an FIR, was a minor at the time of the allotment of licences of lease for two IRCTC hotels (in 2006) to the Kochhar brothers, at Ranchi and Puri, allegedly in exchange for land in Patna.
Congress Legislature Party leader Sadanand Singh also visited Lalu’s residence to express his solidarity. The Congress central leadership had, in Delhi, called the CBI “a captive puppet” of the BJP-led NDA government and accused it of acting like its “dirty tricks department” to seek revenge against political opponents.