Lalu Prasad gets five-year jail term in Doranda treasury case 

“One such person has been with him [Prasad] sometime and sometime with me. He even sought to make me a co-petitioner but I refused to be drawn into the matter”.

Kumar further said that Prasad had to give up the Chief Minister’s chair for his wife. “There have been several cases [related to the fodder scam] and he has also been convicted in many of them. There may be some more,” he stated when asked about allegations that Prasad was paying the price for his opposition to the BJP, which now rules at the Centre.

Later, Tiwari, who is currently RJD national vice-president and was one among those who had signed the petition to demand a CBI inquiry into the fodder scam, said, “It was not an individual’s decision to file the petition in the court, but of the party, whose leader in Bihar was Nitish Kumar, and he refused to sign the petition as he lacks strength in his spine. But one question I would like to ask Kumar is had he ever not met the kingpin of the fodder scam Shyam Bihari Sinha?”

Prasad too tweeted in Hindi, “I fight those who creates divides. They can’t defeat us so they try to trap us in conspiracies. I’ve neither been afraid, not bent before anyone. I’ll keep fighting. The coward will never understand the struggles of a fighter”.

Prasad’s younger son and Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav said, “If Lalu  ji would have shaken hands with the BJP, he would have been called Raja Harishchandra. But today, he is fighting against the RSS-BJP and facing imprisonment. We’ll not get scared with all this.” Taking on the CBI, he stated, “The Central agency has forgotten the scams done by Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. Apart from the fodder scam, it seems no scam has happened in the country. In Bihar, almost 80 scams have happened but where is the CBI, ED and the NIA? In the country, there is only one scam and one leader.”

State RJD president Jagdanand Singh said, “The RJD is not just a political party but a hope of the common people of Bihar and Lalu Prasad is the tallest worker of the party. He stays in the heart of common people and no one can displace him”.

Earlier, along with 37 others, Prasad was convicted in the fraudulent withdrawal of ₹139.35 crore from the Doranda treasury on February 15, 2022 and CBI court judge S.K. Sashi had reserved the quantum of punishment to the convicted persons. The court completed hearing arguments in the case on January 29.