The Ranchi court has finally sent Rashitrya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav behind bars, convicted him in the Fodder Scam, deprived him of his membership of Parliament (MP) and forfeited his right to contest elections. It must be a great day for many of the so-called anti-Mandal or anti-reservation classes. If you glean the comments in Firstpost, Hindustan Times or for that matter any of the media sites, you can see such joy and mirth at Lalu Yadav’s conviction. One writer hopes Lalu would be forced to go back to his caste profession of tending buffalos. Another hopes Lalu Yadav would be forced to eat only cattle fodder in jail. BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley has called this a defining moment in Indian Politics on his site arunjaitley. Jaitley has twisted facts to push his argument. For starters, he has described Lalu’s “Jungle Raj” that began in 1990, clean forgetting that in 1990, it was his party the BJP, that fought elections with Lalu Yadav, and that till November 1990, until Lalu arrested L K Advani and ended his Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra at Samastipur, the Bihar Assembly Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari was a BJP MLA! As a Brahman with RSS background, Jaitley would hate to admit that Lalu created a new consciousness and self respect among the OBCs, Dalits and weaker sections, all of whom were treated worse than animals in a highly casteist, feudal Bihar. What was the caste of Bhagwati Devi, one of Lalu’s MP in the 13th Lok Sabha — Moosahar. Who are Moosahars? They are called by the land owning zamindars to their houses to catch mice, and are given food as reward for these poor guys to eat, even in this day and age. The other day an erstwhile colleague, currently with the Mail Today, was complaining how it has become impossible for Bhumihars like him to walk the streets of Patna, without being taunted by the lower caste youth. Such is the embedded contempt for OBCs and Dalits, which is why all of them, from Jaitley to Ravi Shankar Prasad to Rudy to media biggies from Bihar, and journalists in the Capital, can’t contain their glee. Jaitely is conveniently overlooking the fact that his ex-buddy, former Election Commissioner and Middle Class Hero, T N Seshan, prolonged the Bihar assembly elections for six long months in 1994, using one pretext or the other to deny Lalu the relish of a victory, and yet Lalu Yadav won. Jaitley cannot forgive Lalu Yadav because in the 1991 general elections, when the whole country seemed to be turning saffron in the undivided Bihar, the upper caste Congress returned with only one parliamentary constituency and BJP with four, of which not one is in present day Bihar. The rest of the 49 seats went to Lalu and his allies, Seshan notwithstanding. That is why the Sanghis and Congressis are licking their wounds to date and hate Lalu Prasad. Jaitley said that Lalu survived by influencing the CBI probe through a Congress regime. Let me remind legal eagle Jaitley that the bench of the Patna High Court which was suo motu monitoring the CBI investigations into the so-called fodder scam and which ordered the CBI to register a Disproportionate Assets case against Lalu Yadav, comprised of Justices S N Jha and S J Mukhopadhyaya. The CBI which till then was only probing the fodder scam then turned to Lalu’s assets. The argument was that if Lalu had gobbled up Rs 900 crore worth of fodder then surely he must have hidden his wealth somewhere. The court ordered the CBI to investigate, and U N Biswas, currently in Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, went with such vengeance and vehemence that he called in the Army to arrest Lalu Prasad, forcing even Jaitley’s fellow partyman S S Ahluwalia to protest against Biswas’s unconstitutional conduct. Who was the CBI Director in Delhi? Joginder Singh, who became such a darling of the RSS later that the Sangh invited him to address their Vijay Dashmi celebrations at Resham Bagh soon thereafter, and is drawing an additional pension from The Pioneer as a columnist which BJP MP Chandan Mitra in his generosity has happily granted him. The CBI filed the chargesheet in the DA case on April 4, 2000, when the NDA government was in power and Jaitley himself a minister, though he assumed charge of the Law Ministry three months later. I’ve mentioned who conducted the investigations and at whose instance. Now let me reveal who was the CBI Director when the chargesheet was filed, before I detail what was listed as DA in the said chargesheet. The CBI Director was R K Raghavan whom Jaitely recently issued a good conduct certificate for his biased and pro-Modi probe as the SIT chief in the Ehsan Jafri massacre case against Narendra Modi. Before Raghavan there was D R Kaarthikeyan, whom the Supreme Court and the whole nation (but not me) has declared the greatest sleuth ever born in India for his coloured investigations in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. Let us now examine the assets of Lalu Yadav whom Jaitely and his ilk have pronounced as the most corrupt in independent India. Annexure A of the charge sheet with sub-heading: “Assets acquired during Check Period” reads as follows: Immovable assets: 1. House of Sri Lalu Prasad located at Plot No. 208 MLA Co-op Colony, Sheikhpura, Patna (Valuation as per Income Tax report and Chief Technical Examiner of Central Vigilance Commission—Value Rs 19,14,300.00. It is with regard to this valuation that Jaitely wrote: “The disproportionate assets case witnessed a change of Judge, a change of the prosecutor, a special bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and a judgement which hardly inspired confidence.” The flat was not constructed in the year 2000, or even after the fodder scam broke out. Did a small MLA flat cost Rs 19 crores and not Rs 19 lakh in those days? Surely, since the NDA government assumed power in Bihar in 2005, the real estate prices have sky rocketed. But not when Lalu was around and in fact that was the grouse against Lalu that no one was investing then in Patna . What were the other assets: B. 1..Plot of land No. 891 measuring 9 katha 5.5 dhoor in Phulwaria (Lalu’s village) in the name of Sri Tej Pratap Yadav and Sri Tarun Kumar Yadav (Lalu’s two sons, then underage) vide deed 15628 and 15629 purchased on 27.10.93—value: Rs 13,809.24 2. Plot of land No. 955 measuring 3 katha, 11 dhoor in the name of Sri Tej Pratap and Sri Tarun Kr Yadav vide deed No. 15627 purchased on 27.10.93—value: Rs 5,121.62 3. Plot of land No 825 measuring 2 katha, 16 dhoor in Maripur in the name of Sri Tej Pratap nd Sri Tarun Kumar Yadav vide deeds No. 15664 and 15666, purchased on 28.10.93 value: Rs 3,007.86 4. Plot of land No 955 measuring 13 dhoor in Maripur in the name of Sri Tej Pratap and Sri Tarun Kumar Yadav, vide deed No. 15760 purchased on 29.10.93 value: Rs 1,104.62 5. Plot of land No. 825 measuring 2 katha 16 dhoor in Maripur in the name of Tej Pratap vide deed No. 1674 purchased on 1.2 94.—value: Rs 3,465.62 6. Plot of land No 1287/1267,measuring 10 katha, 15 dhoor in Maripur in the name of Sri Tej Pratap Yadav—value: Rs 29,291.86 7. Plot of land measuring 4 kathas located in Dhanaut, Patna in the name of Smt Rabri Devi vide deed 1993 purchased in the year 1991—value: Rs 1,40,000.00 8. Plot of land measuring 4 kathas located in Dhanaut, Patna in the name of Sri Tej Pratap Yadav vide deed No. 1994 purchased in the year 1991—value: Rs 1,12,000.00 9. Plot of land No. 1161 measuring 8 kathas, 15 dhoors located at Mahuabagh, Patna vide deed No. 9621 dated 9.7.93 in the name of Sri Tej Pratap Singh including registration fees and stamp fees of Rs 4065—value: Rs 2,66,565.00 10. Plot of land No. 1161measuring 8 kathas, 15 dhoors located at Mahubagh, Patna , vide deed No. 9622, dt. 9.7.93 in the name of Rabri Devi including registration fees of Rs 4065—value: Rs 2,66,565.00 11. Plot of land No. 1161 measuring 8 katha, 15 dhoors located at Mahuabagh, Patna ; vide deed No. 9623 in the name of Miss Raj Laxmi, including registration fees of Rs 4065—value: Rs 2,66,565.00 12. Plot of land No. 1161 measuring 8 kathas, 15 dhoors located at Mahuabagh, Patna vide deed No. 9632 dt. 9.7.93 in the name of Sri Tej Pratap Yadav including registration fees of Rs 4065—value Rs 2,66,565.00 13. House at Phulwaria (contribution of Sri Lalu Prasad in its construction) vide the report of Chief Technical Examiner (CTE) of Central Vigilance Commission—value Rs 81,056.00 14. Boundary wall around the plot of land at Dhanaut, Patna (vide Sl 7 and 8 above) as per report of CTE of CVC—value: Rs 76,418.11. Wonder whether anyone including Jaitley bothered to notice that item No. 9, 10, 11 and 12 are the same repeated four times! Thus there is a desperate attempt to enhance the value of Lalu’s assets by adding the value of Plot No. 1161 in Dhanaut, Patna four times over. Even taking this into account the total value of all the immovable assets worked out by the NDA-regime’s CBI charge sheet came to only Rs 34,45,834.93. There is a list of movable assets too which has the details of his and his family members’ bank accounts, all in the State Bank of India, Bailey Road , Patna, with the highest amount of Rs 89,980 in Lalu’s account. Lalu’s daughters have some Fixed Deposits none of which are more than Rs 50,000. Then there are the normal income tax savings schemes all middle-class people adopt. There are National Savings Certificates, there are Kisan Vikas Patra. The list also mentions Lalu’s Maruti 800 Ac car No. BR-1D-0001 purchased in June ’91 in the name of Sri Lalu Prasad worth Rs 1, 58,461. This car Lalu bought after becoming the chief minister. Its value may not be even Rs 50,000 in the year 2000. After all this over estimation the charge sheet has calculated his assets at Rs 42,64,655.38. These are the total assets of the man who has been a MP/MLA/minister since 1977. Which BJP MP/MLA/minister, most of whom entered politics more than 10-15 years after Lalu, can claim to match his assets with Lalu Prasad’s much investigated assets. Yet Lalu is the most corrupt politician. So says Jaitley and Jaitely cannot be wrong.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 13:51:58 +0000
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