A special CBI court has held Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad guilty in the first of the six cases pertaining to the Rs.950-crore fodder scam, a verdict that spells a serious setback to the former Bihar chief minister and increases the likelihood of the next parliamentary elections in the state turning essentially into a contest between JD(U) and BJP.
Prasad, 65, stands to lose his membership of Parliament and faces a ban on fighting elections for six years. He will come under the ambit of the Supreme Court judgement on disqualifying lawmakers convicted for over two years since he is expected to be sentenced for 4-7 years when Special CBI Judge PK Singh pronounces the quantum of punishment on Thursday. The Centre’s Ordinance on providing relief to convicted politicians is not likely to save Prasad either because the Cabinet is expected to recommend its withdrawal on October 2, a fallout of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s recent public outburst against the move. After Singh handed out the 475-page judgement in the Ranchi court on Monday, convicting all the 45 accused including former CM Jagannath Mishra in the 17-year old case, Prasad was taken to the Birsa Munda Central Jail. This case deals with illegal withdrawals of about Rs.38 crore from the Chaibasa treasury in Jharkhand, which was then part of Bihar, where Prasad was chief minister at the time.
Prasad was, however, acquitted in a related case on disproportionate assets.
The conviction is a big blow to RJD, which had been hoping to benefit in the 2014 parliamentary elections from the ruling Janata Dal (United)’s acrimonious split with its alliance partner, Bharatiya Janata Party, earlier this year. RJD, which has had a pre-poll alliance with Ram Vilas Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, has seen a sharp slide in its electoral performance, down from 54 seats in 2005 to 22 seats in 2010 in the 243-member assembly. Similarly, in Lok Sabha elections, it won just four of the 40 seats in the state in 2009, down from 25 in 2004.
Experts said it might be difficult for Prasad to get bail from the high court. If that turns out to be the case, Prasad’s party will find its chief campaigner out of action ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. With the judgement turfing its chief out of the electoral arena, RJD faces the biggest threat to its existence after it has been systematically marginalised by the ruling Janata Dal (United) over the past eight years. In the immediate run, the party can be expected to play the conspiracy card —Prasad’s son Tejaswi Yadav claimed the conviction was a case of political vendetta — to ensure that it retains its base among the Yadavs. In the medium run, though, the party’s supporters among the Muslims could shift their allegiance to a party or grouping that can challenge BJP and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s bid for power at the Centre. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been positioning himself as a claimant for Muslim votes by pursuing an aggressive anti-Modi line and building up support among the Pasmanda (backward) Muslims.
With the electoral combat likely to turn into a JD(U) versus BJP affair, Congress could have little option but to turn to the ruling party, analysts said. The Centre has been wooing Nitish Kumar, who has been saying since severing his party’s ties with BJP that his party will support the party or the government that grants backward status to Bihar.
“I am sad to know Lalu Yadav was found guilty. He has been a close associate and friend of Congress party. I am sure he will submit evidences and prove himself innocent,” said Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh about Prasad, whose party has been a member of the Congress-led coalition at the Centre since 2004. Prasad, considered one of India’s most colourful politicians, served as the railway minister in the first term of the United Progressive Alliance government from 2004.
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