Complaint against jailed Lalu’s tweets dismissed by election officials
Veteran politician’s tweet from jail have irked ruling BJP
Patna: In a setback to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s Election Commission has said it has no plans to keep under scrutiny activities on social media accounts owned by jailed Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Prasad is currently serving prison sentences in three separate fodder scam cases but, through his accounts, he continues tweeting about developments in Indian politics, which has irked the BJP.
The RJD chief has not been posting the tweets himself; rather he has authorised his party to operate the Twitter handle in his absence.
“Dear friends, while in jail, my Twitter handle shall be operated by my office in consultation with family. I shall speak my mind through visitors. The fight to preserve the Constitution & protect the rights of vulnerable groups shall go on,” says a pinned tweet by Prasad, amply explaining the nature of operation on his Twitter handle while he remains confined within four walls.
However, the BJP moved the EC authorities and requested them to take cognisance of RJD chief’s “activities on the social media” despite being in jailing.
“The Election Commission should take serious note of Lalu Prasad’s political activities on the social media despite being in jail,” Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had said
The chief electoral officers of Bihar and Jharkhand H.R. Srinivasan and L. Khiangte, however, told the media that they are not scanning the RJD chief’s social media accounts, and neither do they have any such plans.
“Our special teams have been keeping a watch on only trending content on social media, besides complaints of violation of model code of conduct,” the officials told the local media on Saturday.
Prasad’s office has been quite scathing in its attacks on the rival BJP, which has been pursuing every possible avenue to “silence” the voice of the jailed RJD leader.
However what stung the BJP was a Prasad tweet commenting on the poor turnout at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Patna earlier this month, despite all attempts by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to ferry crowd to the rally venue.
Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar [Bihar chief minister] and Ram Vilas Paswan [Lok Janshakti Party chief and federal minister] used the government machinery at their disposal for months to draw crowds at the Gandhi Maidan, but managed to get only the numbers that casually come to meet me when I stop my vehicle at a paan [betel] shop
The NDA was able to fill up just about 40 per cent of Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, which has a total capacity of a little more than 500,000 people.
And that happened despite the ruling NDA hiring 17 trains, some 8,000 luxury buses and around 15,000 cars to bring the crowd to the rally ground.
“Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar [Bihar chief minister] and Ram Vilas Paswan [Lok Janshakti Party chief and federal minister] used the government machinery at their disposal for months to draw crowds at the Gandhi Maidan, but managed to get only the numbers that casually come to meet me when I stop my vehicle at a paan [betel] shop,” Prasad had tweeted on March 3, the day PM Modi addressed his election rally in Patna.
The rally had been jointly organised by the BJP, Janata Dal United (JD-U) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), all constituents of the Bihar NDA.