3 more RJD MLAs return, Lalu accuses Nitish of poaching MLAs
Updated
Patna, Feb 25 (PTI): Three more RJD MLAs, who were reportedly part of the rebel group that broke away yesterday, are said to have returned to the party today.
With this, the total number of MLAs who have stuck to RJD has gone up to 9.
Yesterday, nine of the 13 RJD MLAs were given permission to sit as a separate group in the Assembly after claims were made that they have quit the party.
The nine MLAs today attended a legislature party meeting of the Assembly called by Lalu Prasad.
Three MLAs in addition to the six who were paraded before the media yesterday evening turned up for the meeting at the residence of former chief minister Rabri Devi.
Earlier, an angry RJD chief attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the defection."He is a scandal master. After divorce with BJP he is going to any extent to poach MLAs of rival parties," Prasad told reporters after flying down from Delhi.
He blamed Kumar for hatching a conspiracy with Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary to split the RJD. "The whole world saw his conspiracy which went awry," he said.
However, the Speaker rubbished the allegation levelled by Prasad and said the decision was lawful.
"I do not know who is saying what on television channels ... but the Assembly secretariat has taken a right decision," Chaudhary told PTI.
"The Assembly Secretariat decision is lawful," he emphasised.
Three MLAs Ramlakhan Ram Raman, Anirudh Kumar and Jitendra Kumar Rai turned up for the meeting in addition to the six who denied that they had quit.
The six Abdul Gafoor, Lalit Yadav, Faiyyaz Ahmad, Durga Prasad Singh, Chandrasekhar and Akhtar-ul Islam Sahin were paraded before the media yesterday evening.
Four of the 13 MLAs including Samrat Chaudhary, who is Chief Whip in the Assembly, Akhtarul Iman, Javed Iqbal Ansari and Raghvendra Pratap Singh did not attend the meeting.
Legislature party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui and party Secretary General and MP Ramkripal Yadav, among others, were present at the meeting at the meeting at the 10 Circular road residence of Rabri Devi.
Ramkripal Yadav accused the chief minister of engineering defection to save his minority government.Bhai Birendra alleged that Samrat Chaudhary fraudulently acquired the signatures of the MLAs.
Durga Prasad Singh, who figured among the 13, said he had not left the party and said he could speak about his signature only after seeing the papers submitted to the Speaker.
RJD has 22 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.
Earlier Report
Lalu accuses Nitish of hatching conspiracy to break RJD
Patna, Feb 25 (PTI): With a faction of his MLAs parting ways with the RJD, Lalu Prasad today rushed to Patna to bring his house in order and blamed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for hatching a "conspiracy" to break his party.
"Nitish hatched a conspiracy with the speaker to break my party. But, it went wrong and the whole country has seen the conspiracy," Prasad told reporters at Patna airport.
RJD saw a major upheaval yesterday with 13 out of its 22 MLAs quitting the party. But six of them later returned and denied walking away from the party.
A meeting of RJD legislature party has been called at the residence of former chief minister Rabri Devi here in which Prasad will be present along with other top leaders.
There are reports that three more rebel RJD leaders, whose names figured in the list of 13, visited Rabri Devi's house last night and denied they had parted ways.
While Prasad flew to Patna, Kumar left for Delhi just a few minutes after the arrival of RJD leader but they did not see each other at the airport.
The MLAs, who split from the RJD, had pledged support to the JD(U) government.
In a letter to Assembly Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary bearing their signatures, the 13 RJD MLAs--five of whom are Muslims-- had informed him that they were quitting the party.
"In accordance with the request of the 13 MLAs as per an interim arrangement they have been given permission to sit as a separate group," an Assembly notification had said.
The RJD MLAs whose signatures were appended on the letter were Samrat Chaudhary, Raghvendra Pratap Singh, Durga Prasad Singh, Lalit Yadav, Anirudh Kumar, Jeetendra Rai, Akhtar-ul-Islam Sahin, Akhtar-ul-Iman, Abdul Gafoor, Faiyazz, Javed Iqbal Ansari, Ram Lakhan Ram Raman and Chandrasekhar.
Shortly after the revolt, six MLAs denied they have left the party and said that they did not consciously sign any letter for walking out of RJD and forming a separate group.
Gafoor claimed that the signature of MLAs were taken for different purposes like raising a matter for call attention motion during the Assembly session.
"I did not sign any letter consciously to leave RJD ... a fraud has been committed on me," Gafoor said.
Besides Gafoor, the other MLAs who came to RJD office to deny a split were Lalit Yadav, Faiyyaz Ahmad, Durga Prasad Singh, Chandrasekhar and Akhtar-ul Islam Sahin. Yadav also denied giving his signature for purpose of leaving the party.