Patna
Around 50 Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) lawmakers have surrendered their personal security to protest state government’s move to downgrade security at the official residence of their vice-president and former chief minister Rabri Devi. The RJD with 80 lawmakers in the Bihar assembly is the main opposition party in the state and has described the move as “act of political vendetta”.
“All our lawmakers are writing to the respective district chiefs of police to take back their security. This is the only way we can show the state government how the party lawmakers can do without duty,” party spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav told media on Friday.
The bizarre protest by the RJD lawmakers has caused panic in the state administration as they can be straightway held guilty for any untoward incident. Quite many of the lawmakers figure in the hit-list of gangsters and Maoists. RJD’s first family is among them.
Yet the former chief minister Rabri Devi accompanied by both her sons rushed to the Bihar assembly today without any security to file nomination papers for the Bihar legislative council elections on Friday. Although the state government has restored security to Rabri Devi’s official residence, she has refused to accept them until the state government explains under what circumstances the lifelong security, as provided to a former chief minister, was withdrawn in the dead of night and how the number of security personnel provided to her residence was more than the Chief Minister’s residence as police have claimed before the media.
She got irked shortly after the state government in a sudden move withdrew security from her official residence post-midnight on Tuesday. This came soon after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had quizzed her and her son in the land-for-railway hotel scam earlier in the day. The family reacted by surrendering all the security provided to them. It may be noted that both her sons were also provided security in the capacity of being lawmakers.
She also shot off a letter to the chief minister, apprising him of the entire security personnel having been returned to the state government. In the letter, she also mentioned that the state government will be solely responsible in case any untoward incident happened with the family.
Although the chief minister quickly ordered restoration of security to her, Rabri Devi refused to accept them until the state government replied to her queries. “I would like to know by whose order my security was withdrawn. Doesn’t the chief minister have control over home department which he also heads?” she asked, adding the government should answer why the security of a former CM was withdrawn.
“They claim removing the security guards of Lalu Prasad (her husband) who is in jail now. If they removed his house guards, where are those given for my security? I am also a former chief minister,” she asked.
