Lalu sentenced: 5yrs jail term, lifetime oblivion?

The CBI special court today awarded Lalu Prasad Yadav a quantum of 5 years as sentence in Ranchi. The court sentence was announced via video conferencing in the Birsa Munda jail where Lalu has been currently housed with other convicts.

He has also been fined INR 25 Lakh in the case.

However, the defence will try to get bail for Lalu from Patna High Court by filing a bail plea as soon as possible. But his spending 13 more days in the jail seems imminent as the high court closes tomorrow due to beginning of Durga Puja.

With this, the onus of disqualifying Lalu Prasad from Loksabha lies on speaker Meira Kumar. He will, after his disqualification, become only second MP after Congress’ own Rasheed Masood to face disqualification due to Supreme Court’s historic judgement.

The RJD members have shown solidarity with Lalu Yadav. Speaking to the media in front of Lalu’s house, Ramkripal Yadav accused Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and BJP doing political conspiracy against Lalu. “We stand with our leader and we will fight the evil forces with unity,” he said.

Another senior leader Rajneeti Prasad called the conviction wrong. He said that the demand of transferring the case to a different court was wrongfully denied.

Interestingly, RJD is not blaming Congress for Lalu’s undoing at all. It was Rahul’s press crash and conscience speaking moment which ruined the game for RJD. But the party is blaming BJP and JD(U) of conspiracy against their leader.

The RJD will appeal to a higher court.

Meanwhile, BJP has welcomed the judgement saying the judgement was late but not denied. BJP’s deputy leader in Rajya Sabha, Ravishankar Prasad said that they were a part of the student movement with Lalu whose motto was “Bhrashtachar mitana hai, naya Bihar banana hai” (Corruption is to be removed, new Bihar had to be made).

It is to be noted that Sushil Modi had petition against Lalu Prasad in the said scam and Ravi Shankar Prasad was lawyer in the case.

Lalu faced jail for nine months in 1997 and during that time instated Rabri Devi as chief minister of Bihar.

With party members calling Lalu their leader and not accepting ascendance of his son Tejaswi and wife Rabri Devi, the problem for RJD supreme increases multifolds. The relevance of RJD will be a difficult thing to keep up with.

According to Supreme Court’s judgement, Lalu will be barred from contesting elections after his disqualification from the Lok Sabha. Also, he will not be able to contest elections till the completion of six years after the completion of sentence.

As Lalu’s fate is sealed, the next question arises – is this sentence going to prove lifetime oblivion for him?