Patna: A ruling Janata Dal United (JD-U) lawmaker may face stern action for going to receive the controversial Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Mohammad Shahabuddin, who was released from jail on Saturday after 11 years behind bars.
Shahabuddin, who faces at least 50 cases against him as serious as murder, kidnapping, extortion and treason, had been lodged in jail since 2005.
Taking the matter seriously, the ruling JD-U leadership on Monday served a show-cause notice on party lawmaker Giridhari Yadav.
The lawmaker has been asked to explain under what circumstances he went to meet Shahabuddin and why he remained silent when the RJD politician attacked JD-U chief minister Nitish Kumar, terming him as “a chief minister by circumstances”.
Both RJD and JD-U are coalition partners in the ruling Nitish Kumar government in Bihar.
“We can’t ignore our lawmaker’s silence while Shahabuddin was spitting fire on our chief minister. The party is considering action against him,” JD-U’s chief spokesperson Sanjay Singh told the media on Monday.
Yadav, however, has said he was not present on the spot when the RJD leader criticised the CM.
“It’s true I went to meet Shahabuddin at the jail gate but I was not present when the latter criticised our CM,” Yadav said.
However, the party doesn’t look in the mood to spare its lawmaker who once was in the RJD.
On Sunday, the JD-U had served a strong “warning” to Shahabuddin, terming his observations over chief minister Nitish Kumar as a “matter of concern for Indian democracy”. “His statement is a matter of concern for democracy. We will make him feel the power of government. He won’t feel even pain by our government’s injection,” JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar warned.
Condemning his remarks, Kumar said the CM didn’t require a certificate from someone who came out of jail after a decade.
Shahabuddin kicked up a political storm by claiming “Nitish Kumar is a chief minister by circumstances” and that “he can’t win more than 20 seats if he contests the elections alone.”
He also denounced Kumar as being a “mass leader”.
Chief Minister Kumar, however, rubbished his statements, terming them “unimportant”.
“People of Bihar know whom they have given their mandate and it is not important for him to comment over who says what,” Kumar told the media in Patna on Sunday.
He said he was hardly bothered by such remarks and would continue focusing on governance.
As the matter appeared to be blowing up into a major controversy, the RJD hurriedly got into damage-control mode, claiming its alliance with the JD-U was intact.
“Our alliance is as strong as Himalaya and the government is doing better works in the interests of Bihar,” tweeted deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.
