Petitioners react differently to SC’s order on Lalu
Patna,(BiharTimes): Strange are the ways of politics. Post-May 10 Supreme Court order the three petitioners in the Patna high court in the fodder scam, are now speaking in three different languages. While senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi welcomed the Supreme Court order and questioned the silence of chief minister Nitish Kumar and the role played by former CBI director Ranjit Sinha former minister Shivanand Tiwari, who has crossed over to different parties in the last two decades, called it ‘influenced judgment’.
The third person, Saryu Rai, who is now a senior minister in the Jharkhand cabinet, has a very different approach. On Tuesday he welcomed the apex court order though only two days earlier he had met RJD chief Lalu Prasad at his wife’s 10, Circular Road bungalow, and stayed there for half an hour.
He is happy with the judgement. He said he met Lalu as the latter was not well. But it does not mean he supports the RJD chief. The Supreme Court judgment is a victory of the crusade against corruption. “We hope Lalu will be convicted in the remaining cases as well,” Saryu Rai, whose meeting with Lalu upset many Bihar BJP leaders, said. Tiwari, whose son is an RJD MLA, said Lalu is being made a victim for his strong stand against BJP.
Explaining the circumstances which led to the filing of petitions he said he petitioned against Lalu as the then Samata Party leader George Fernandes wanted to pin down Lalu through legal battle as he had a huge support base in Bihar in the mid-1990s.
“When a senior Samata Party leader, who is now an ally of Lalu refused to sign the petition, as desired by George Saheb, I was sent by a plane from Delhi to sign it. It was the party leadership call and I abided by it without any personal reason,” Tiwari was quoted in the Times of India.
“No one is spotless. There is an element of grey in every one,” he said without giving any character certificate to Lalu. On the other hand Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, who had filed the second petition just after the above three filed in the high court seeking CBI probe is now refusing to comment. He is now a senior JD(U) minister.
