Will be sentenced on Thursday.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: Hours before catching a flight to Ranchi to face the CBI special court verdict, the former chief minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, went to his air-conditioned cow-shed, home to his favorite 72 Jersey cows and 42 calves to seek the blessings – he worships them as gau-matas. But it was to no avail. Prasad was convicted by the court for his involvement in the Rs. 950 crore 16-year-old fodder scam.
Prasad, who is also the leader of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), would know the exact punishment on Thursday, which has maximum sentence of seven years in jail.
Prasad’s exit has triggered off a near tussle for succession at the helm of the party that he founded in 1997 after being ousted from Janata Dal over his involvement in the above scam. Although party members have been keeping a brave front and denying any leadership crisis as of now it seems that the court verdict has been a big blow to RJD which rides on the sizeable Yadav and Muslim voters in the state.
“This is most certainly a big blow for the party and the country,” senior RJD Ram Kripal Yadav said. Although he denied a leadership crisis it seems that the tussle for filling up the vacant slot would be between Prasad’s wife Rabri and cricketer son Tejaswi. It must be recalled here that Rabri had stepped in as Chief Minister when her husband was jailed earlier in the same case in 1997.
Prasad’s son Tejaswi said that the family is saddened by the verdict. “However we will be appealing to a higher court and that the party will bounce back in the elections.”
The scam had involved fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 950 crore of public money from the treasuries of Chaibasa in undivided Bihar under the head of the animal husbandry department in the early 1990s. The money was withdrawn on the basis of fake bills and vouchers for buying fodder and medicine for livestock by the animal husbandry officials in connivance with traders and top officials and politicians across the party lines.
The countries’ independent audit body, the CAG first spoke about the anomalies in its annual reports of four fiscals from 1992-93, to 1995-96 about the excessive withdrawal from the treasuries. The then Lalu Prasad government reportedly kept the reports under cover and the scam surfaced when the deputy commissioner of West Singhbhum district, Amit Khare, was the first to follow up on the CAG reports on the fraudulent withdrawal.
The first FIR was lodged on January 24, 1996. The CBI lodged 54 cases in connection with the fodder scam. They were first lodged with the CBI’s regional office in Patna, the capital of Bihar, and also a bench of the Patna High Court. After the division of Bihar in November 2000, 52 of those cases were transferred to the CBI court in Ranchi, the capital of the newly formed Jharkhand, with a bench of Jharkhand High Court monitoring them.
Besides Prasad, former chief minister Jagannath Mishra, former animal husbandry ministers Vidyasagar Nishad and Chandradeo Prasad Verma, JD (U) MP Jagdish Sharma, BJP leader Dhruv Bhagat and former RJD MP RK Rana were also among the convicted.
It was a big blow to the Congress Party too, the key component of the ruling UPA coalition as its former minister Misra was also convicted.
The main opposition BJP welcomed the decision and said that the judgment was ‘historic.’ BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said: “The party welcomes this verdict. Lalu Prasad Yadav was trying to save himself with the Ordinance that the Cabinet had just passed.” He added that the court’s verdict has come late but it has given a major verdict. RJD on the other hand, said that the party stands united and backs its leader and would challenge the court’s decision on the case and support Prasad.
Prasad now would be automatically cease to become a member of the parliament (Lok Sabha membership) and also from contesting elections for six years under a recent Supreme Court order that an MP or MLA would stand disqualified immediately if convicted by a court for crimes with punishment of two years or more even without jail sentence.
The judgment of the Supreme Court struck down a provision in the electoral law that provided protection to sitting MPs and MLAs by allowing them to continue in their posts if they appeal against a lower court conviction and secure a stay of the order. However, last week the Union Cabinet had cleared an ordinance allowing convicted and jailed MPs and MLAs to contest elections.
But the ordinance itself has run into trouble and is likely to die a natural death. Prasad would have got protection from disqualification if the ordinance promulgated by the Center was cleared by President Pranab Mukherjee, but the President has reservations and raised questions over it.
Meanwhile, UPA-Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has compounded problems by attacking the ordinance and calling for its withdrawal, virtually sealing its fate. The ordinance, which is pending with President Mukherjee, is likely to fizzle out with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicating from Washington that the Cabinet would seek its withdrawal after his return next week.