As Bihar’s NDA leaders on Saturday mocked at RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi, the couple’s cricketer son defended his mother over her controversial comments about chief minister Nitish Kumar uttered in a campaign speech. But a case was lodged against Ms Devi in a lower court.
Tejaswi, a political greenhorn and Ranji Trophy player from Jharkhand who has been vigorously campaigning for the RJD-LJP alliance for Bihar’s ongoing Assembly polls, spoke elaborately in defence of Ms Rabri Devi’s public comments on Friday, in which the former Bihar chief minister had rudely said Ms Nitish Kumar was a “beiman aur chor” (dishonest and a thief).
“She (Devi) was only pointing at the widespread corruption in the NDA government, like the `500-crore excise scam and the `11,412-crore AC-DC bills scam, and many more. These are facts and the government cannot escape blame,” said Tejaswi, 21, who was earlier a member of the Delhi Daredevil team in the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) and deputy chief minister Sushil Modi of the BJP jeered at Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ms Rabri Devi both for the RJD’s 15-year rule in Bihar and for the couple’s uncouth vocabulary. Mr Kumar, addressing a campaign meeting in Bankipur constituency in Patna, said: “They (the couple) have decided to remain the same as before. They have decided not to reform themselves.”
A case against Ms Devi was lodged at the chief judicial magistrate’s court in Darbhanga for berating Mr Kumar in what appeared to many as personal rebuke. The JD(U)’s Darbhanga district unit president, Ashok Thakur, lodged the case that would now be heard on November 20.