Rai serves 7-day ultimatum to Marandi

BJP MP from Koderma and former State BJP president Ravindra Kumar Rai on Saturday served seven-day ultimatum to JVM chief Babulal Marandi asking him to prove that the letter he presented to Governor describing horse trading of MLAs after 2014 Assembly polls was bonafide. The MP warned of lodging defamation case against Marandi for the Act.

The Koderma MP paraded all six MLAs including two cabinet Ministers in a Press conference at party headquarters here on Saturday rejecting Marandi’s claims that the MLAs were bought by the BJP by paying Rs 11 crore. He said that even an insane person will not write such letter and sign on in.

“It’s neither my letter nor my signatures on it. It’s a completely fake letter. Babulal Jee should explain to the people from where he got it. Even a foolish person will not write such things. Babulal Jee has turned a failure in politics now he is running a racket of frauds and doing forgery,” said Rai addressing media persons.

“The State had been facing political instability since the day it was created and we wanted a stable political scenario for its development. In this connection talks were going on with the JVM. It was in public domain and every legislator was aware of it. Later when Babulal Jee changed ways, the MLAs decided to come to our fold for political stability,” he added.

Answering to the questions Cabinet Minister Amar Kumar Bauri said that a meeting was held in Delhi for a proposed merger of JVM into BJP. “All JVM MLAs alongwith Pradeep yadav and Babulal Marandi were in the meeting that was held in Delhi for a single agenda of merger of JVM into BJP. Later when Babulal Jee changed his stand the decision to merge the party into a BJP was taken in a Legislature Party meeting of the JVM by MLAs,” he said.

Rai said Marandi has reached a new low in politics by cheating people of the State with a forged letter. He demanded a public apology from Marandi and said if the JVM Chief does not apologise for his misdeeds, he would be forced to lodge a defamation suit in the court.

Minister Amar Kumar Bauri and Randhir Singh, MLAs Ganesh Ganjhu, Navin Jaiswal, Alok Kumar Chaurasia and Janki Prasad Yadav alongwith State BJP general Secretary Deepak Prakash were present in the press conference.

Earlier on July 06, Marandi had sought CBI investigation into the alleged horse trading case of six of his party MLAs switching to the BJP soon after the Assembly elections in 2015. He met Governor Droupadi Murmu and presented a letter as proof of the money trail that had allegedly taken place.

The letter dated January 19, 2015 is said to be of then Jharkhand BJP president Ravindra Kumar Rai and addressed to party’s national president Amit Shah. Rai, referring to then State BJP in-charge Trivendra Singh Rawat’s order, had reportedly quoted the money to be given to the six legislators elected on JVM’s ticket in lieu of their joining the BJP along with the facilitators and observers.