RJD chief Lalu Prasad's evoking names of Nelson Mandela and BR Ambedkar after being convicted in the fodder scam drew ridicule and stinging criticism on Sunday from NDA leaders, including his one-time friend Ram Vilas Paswan, who said Prasad was in jail for corruption while those icons made sacrifices in national interest.
Union Minister Paswan said that Prasad had insulted stalwarts like Ambedkar by comparing himself with them and asked whether the fodder scam was a scam of the poor or the powerful people.
Senior RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad, however, said Prasad was framed due to political rivalry. BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao, however, insisted that the RJD chief's conviction in the fodder scam was an open-and-shut case of "brazen corruption" that did not come as a surprise.
Singh also raised questions on the acquittal of former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra, another accused in the scam case and asserted that the RJD will go to the High Court and defeat BJP at the end.
On the day the CBI special court convicted him in the fodder scam case, Prasad tweeted, "Had people like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Baba Saheb Ambedkar failed in their efforts, history would have treated them as villains. They still are villains for the biased, racist and caste-ist minds. No one should expect any different treatment." He also trained guns on the BJP, seeing a "conspiracy".
Paswan, a foe-turned-friend-turned-foe of Prasad in the politics of Bihar, made a strong defence of BJP, and went to the extent of saying that the allegations levelled by Prasad amounted to an insult of the judiciary as he has been convicted by a court not the BJP.
"Lalu ji you should not blame the BJP for everything to hide your sin. You should also not compare yourself with Martin Luther King, Mandela or Baba Saheb Ambedkar. They made sacrifices in the national interest. You are in jail for corruption, which is against national interest," Paswan tweeted.
BJP's Rao also targetted the Congress demanding that the latter should also condemn Prasad's remarks otherwise it will be seen as they are in agreement with him.
On Saturday, Prasad along with 14 others, were pronounced guilty, while seven other accused including Jagannath Mishra, were acquitted in one of the fodder scam cases related to embezzlement of more than Rs 89 lakh from the Deoghar Treasury. The scam allegedly involved the embezzlement of about Rs 900 crore from the state treasury.
WHAT PASWAN SAID
- “Lalu ji you should not blame the BJP for everything to hide your sin. You should also not compare yourself with Martin Luther King, Mandela or Baba Saheb Ambedkar. They made sacrifices in the national interest. You are in jail for corruption, which is against national interest,” he tweeted
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 "Ram Vilas Paswan")
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