PATNA: Bihar’s Deputy CM and BJP leader
Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday said the charges of corruption against
RJD chief Lalu Prasad and some members of his family in the ‘land-for-hotels’ deal could not be concealed by raising slogans and creating ruckus in the state legislature by the legislators of Lalu’s party.
“If they (RJD legislators) feel that their leader Lalu Prasad is being falsely implicated in the case of shady land deals, they should move to the court to seek remedy. Shouting of slogans will not conceal the charges of corruption,” Modi said while reacting over the RJD lawmakers’ causing ruckus in the state assembly and legislative council leading to adjournment in both houses of
Bihar legislature.
Earlier in the day, the RJD legislators shouted slogans inside the Assembly and the Legislative Council, waving copies of a report published in a leading English daily, which claimed that a regular case (RC, similar to FIR) was lodged by the CBI against Lalu Prasad in the land-for-hotels deal, despite the investigating agency's legal wing expressing the opinion that there was “no evidence” against the RJD boss.
“Instead of causing disruptions in the assembly, the Leader of Opposition
Tejashwi Prasad Yadav should tell public as to how he became owner of the controversial land on which a Rs 750 crore mall was being constructed,” Sushil Modi said.
Tejashwi, the younger son of Lalu Prasad, is also a named accused in the Regular Case lodged by CBI in the ‘land for hotels’ deal.
Modi said, Tejashwi should also explain as to why Kochar brothers who were leased out the Indian Railway’s two hotels at Ranchi and Puri, transferred their land in the name of a company owned by family members of the then union minister Prem Chand Gupta.
“Tejashwi should also explain to public as to why Gupta’s company the Delight Marketing Private Company later handed over the very plot of land to the members of Lalu family,” Modi said.
“If Tejashwi had an answer to these questions, he would not have lost his chair of deputy CM,” Sushil Modi said, in an obvious dig at the RJD losing power in Bihar in July last year.
Tejashwi Yadav had become the deputy CM after the Grand Alliance comprising
Nitish Kumar's JD(U), the RJD and the
Congress registered an impressive victory in the 2015 Assembly polls.
However, the coalition came under strain after Tejashwi's name cropped up in the corruption scandal in the wake of land-for-hotels deal.
Nitish and his party JD(U) had asked him at that time to come clean on the issue by giving a public explanation but the RJD turned down the suggestion. Finally, Nitish resigned from the chief minister's post and formed a new coalition government with the BJP in the last week of July 2017.
