Bihar netas flout jail norms to meet Lalu at Ranchi hospital

RANCHI: Incarcerated RJD president Lalu Prasad continued ignoring the jail norms and met three of his party leaders from Bihar at the paying ward of Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (Rims) on Thursday. The former Bihar CM has been flouting jail regulations on numerous occasions since the JMM-led mahagathbandhan came to power in the state in December.
Prasad spent almost 90 minutes with Bihar MLC Sunil Kumar Singh and former Parsa MLA Chhote Lal Rai at the hospital, where he has been housed since September 2018 on the directions of Jharkhand high court.Security officials posted at Rims, however, said they did not allow anyone to visit Lalu on Thursday.
RJD sources said Singh, an old Lalu loyalist and the current chairperson of the Bihar State Cooperative Marketing Union, sought Lalu’s blessings after he was elected as a member to Bihar Vidhan Parishad on Monday on an RJD ticket. Rai is a ticket aspirant for the upcoming Bihar polls.
When TOI approached the two, Rai denied meeting Lalu and left the Rims campus. Singh however said he had come to meet a relative who is admitted at Rims and met Laluji accidentally on the corridors. On being asked whether he had permissions from the prison authorities, Singh said: “I was walking on the corridors of the hospital building and I spotted him taking a walk. So I asked him about his health for a brief period,” Singh said.
Hospital sources said there has been a significant increase in the number of political visitors at Rims ahead of the Bihar assembly elections and they are being allowed to meet their leader with co-operation of police authorities deployed at the hospital.
A source employed at the hospital’s paying ward said, “Since the day Laluji celebrated his birthday with son Tejashwi last month, there has been a flurry of people visiting Rims from various parts of Bihar on a daily basis.”
Jail superintendent Ashok Chaudhary said they have put a blanket ban on visitors for Lalu since the outbreak of Covid-19. When asked about the violations of jail norms, he said: “I do not have any such information and no one can meet Lalu Prasad without the permission of jail IG.”