Leaked Lalu audio tape: BJP MLA Lalan Paswan lodges FIR against RJD chief

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Lalan Paswan has lodged an FIR in vigilance Thana, Patna against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief, Lalu Prasad Yadav under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

“Lalan Paswan lodged FIR in vigilance Thana, Patna against Lalu Pd under the prevention of corruption act for making telephone calls from custody and offering ministerial berth which amounts to bribing and alluring a public servant,” BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted.

This comes after Paswan on Wednesday alleged that Lalu Prasad Yadav had offered to make him a minister if he abstained from the Speaker’s election in the Bihar assembly.

The MLA’s remarks came after purported audio of Lalu Prasad Yadav surfaced in which he can be heard asking Paswan to remain absent from the Bihar Assembly during the election of Speaker.

BJP leader said, “I got a call from Lalu Ji, which was received by my personal secretary. I thought he had called to congratulate me. He then started saying ‘don’t support the Speaker’. He said I’ll be made a minister. I told him that I can’t do it. I am a member of the party and cannot do it.”

When the BJP MLA replies: “We are in a party”, the voice purportedly of Lalu Yadav says in Hindi, “Be absent… Say you got corona)”. The voice apparently of the RJD leader later says in Hindi, “If you support us and we have our Speaker, then we can do things for you.”

The audio clip surfaced ahead of the election to the Bihar Assembly Speaker’s post, which was held on Wednesday. National Democratic Alliance’s Vijay Kumar Sinha was elected as Speaker of Bihar assembly by majority vote.

Responding to the alleged audio, RJD Bhai Virendra hit out at former deputy chief minister, Sushil Modi and said that he is now unemployed and levelling false accusation. He wants to get into good books by levelling such allegations so that he can get a ‘job’. There are many who can mimic Lalu Yadav’s voice.

The former chief minister of the state, Lalu Prasad Yadav is a convict in the fodder scam cases and currently admitted to the RIMS hospital in Jharkhand’s Ranchi. He was lodged at the Hotwar Central Jail after being sentenced by a special court of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

In the recently concluded Assembly election, NDA has secured a majority with 125-seats in the 243-seat strong Bihar Legislative Assembly of which BJP won on 74 seats, Janata Dal (United) on 43 while eight seats were won by two other NDA constituents. The RJD, on the other hand, emerged as the single-largest party with 75 seats while the Congress only won 19 of the 70 seats it had contested.