Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad now serving prison term in Jharkhand jail has moved the Supreme Court as his last option to seek bail.
His absence has been badly affecting the party activities and has also resulted in non-finalisation of the seat-sharing deal among allies while less than two months have been left for the general elections.
Prasad moved the top court after the local Jharkhand high court rejected his bail in the fodder scam cases last month. In his petition, the RJD chief had cited his serious health complications, ageing troubles and political compulsions behind seeking bails but the court rejected his request.
Left with no other options, the RJD chief has now special leave petition in the Supreme Court to seek freedom from jail. So far, he has been sentenced to jail in at least three fodder scam cases and though he is currently lodged in jail yet he is undergoing treatment in a local government hospital under judicial custody.
Under the existing jail manual, Prasad can meet only three persons in a week every Saturday but he requires urgent sittings with various political leaders to finalise the seat sharing deal and allot the seats to his demanding allies, such as the Congress, Rashtriya Lok Samata Party headed by former federal minister Upendra Kushwana, Hindustani Awam Morcha led by ex chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and others. All his allies are hell-bent on seeking large share of seats this time.
Not only this, Prasad being the head of his party is the only person authorised by the RJD to distribute party symbols among candidates, and thus getting bail is very important for him. His absence has done a lot of harm to his party’ health as there is no prominent leaders in the party except his younger son Tejashwi Yadav, former deputy chief minister, and his wife Rabri Devi, former chief minister, to launch a poll campaign.
The septuagenarian politician has been lodged in prison since December 2017. In May last year, the court had granted him provisional bail for six weeks for his specialised treatment but later refused extend his bail further as he had surrender in August.
The RJD which banks on the support of the Muslims and Yadav, a backward caste, is the powerful opposition party in Bihar and in the last 2015 state polls had alone won 80 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly. It was also because of support from the RJD that the Janata Dal United (JD-U) headed by Nitish Kumar was able to win a spectacular performance, emerging victorious on 71 seats. Kumar had fought the last polls in alliance with Prasad’s RJD.
Despite winning majority of seats and emerging as the single-largest party in the Bihar assembly, the RJD gifted the post of the chief minister to Kumar as its “pre-poll commitment”. However, the chief minister ditched the RJD midway and formed his new government with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against whom the JD-U had won elections.
The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is now happy that the mighty politician is in jail and has gone launching poll campaign very much in advance. But the observers say his absence won’t benefit the NDA quite much as the general masses are angry with Narendra Modi government’s failure to fulfil his pre-poll commitment of crediting Rs1.5 million to the bank account of every Indian citizen, proving 20 million jobs to the youths, grant special category status and special financial package to Bihar and look into the problem of farming class. Moreover, RJD voters are quite united this time and looking not ready to switch sides as was seen in the last Lok Sabha polls.
