Bihar: BJP MLC raises question over Pappu’s arrest

PATNA: Days after NDA allies Jitan Ram Manjhi-led HAM(S) and cabinet minister Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) disapproved of the arrest of JAP (L) chief and former MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, some senior leaders of ruling BJP and JD(U) have now questioned the wisdom of the police administration to arrest the don-turned-politician at a time when he was tirelessly working to save the lives of Covid-19 patients by providing them necessary medicines and oxygen cylinders.
BJP’s former national secretary and MLC Rajnish Kumar has even demanded immediate release of Pappu from jail so that he and his team could resume their work of helping the patients in this unprecedented pandemic.
“The arrest of Pappu Yadav is giving a message that the people or people’s representatives who are working for the welfare of people during the Covid-19 pandemic are being discouraged. I say his arrest is against the humanity. If Pappu saved the life of even a single Covid-19 patient, he must be praised by the society and the state government so that more people come forward and serve the patients like Pappu had been doing. I protest the arrest of Pappu in this scenario of pandemic. His arrest is very unfortunate,” Ranjish told TOI over phone on Friday.
Rajnish, however, clarified that he was not speaking on behalf of the BJP. “I am giving my opinion as an elected people’s representative. I am not a supporter of Pappu Yadav. But the way he was working to save the Covid-19 patients, he should not have been arrested,” Rajnish said.
Senior JD(U) leader and well-known JP movement activist Sushil Tiwari too has questioned the arrest of Pappu at a time when he was “fearlessly working” to help the Covid patients and their families. “Pappu’s fearless works in corona period is a courageous step, which should be welcomed by all. In such a pandemic situation, the act of sending him (Pappu) to jail is ‘neither appropriate nor justified’,” Tiwari said in his Facebook post on Friday.
Twari has also said Pappu’s action of exposing parked ambulances was not a “wrong step”. The JD(U) leader has also said that “non-action against the Saran DM and the Saran MP in the ambulance case is sending a wrong message in public about the state government”.
Tiwari told TOI that he has not criticized the state government. “Rather, I have shown a mirror to the government,” he said.
Pappu was arrested in Patna on Tuesday first for violating the lockdown rules and then in a 32-year-old kidnapping case lodged against him in Madhepura. But there is a strong twist in this case as Raj Kumar Yadav, the man who was allegedly kidnapped, denies the allegations and said the police registered a criminal case against Pappu in utter confusion. Pappu has now been shifted to Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital for his treatment under judicial custody.