CCTV footage triggers row as Jharkhand Congress leader denies aiding BJP
“This entire episode points to a well-planned conspiracy. The truth is, ever since I joined the Congress party, a particular lobby has been continuously trying to stop and defame me. This is the same lobby that once tried to form the Birsa Congress, attempted to break away Congress MLAs, and also played a role in preventing our merger during the last assembly term,” Yadav said in a social media post.
A CCTV footage showing Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Pradeep Yadav meeting Leader of Opposition Babulal Marandi triggered fresh political controversy on Saturday, with the former rejecting allegations of aiding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) amid deepening infighting within the Jharkhand Congress.
The development comes two days after LoP Babulal Marandi handed over a pen drive to Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto on the last day of the winter session, alleging that it contained audio of a party MLA in discussion with the state health minister about non-cooperation in granting a licence to a nursing college owner linked to one of the legislator’s acquaintances.
The discussion was said to have taken place during a Congress legislature party meeting ahead of the session, during which a few legislators and a party minister reportedly got into a heated exchange. The transcript of the discussion, carried on the pen drive, was also published by a vernacular daily.
However, on Friday, news reports featuring footage of Yadav meeting Marandi emerged, raising questions about whether the Congress leader had provided Marandi the audio recording from the legislature party meeting on a pen drive.
However, Yadav rubbished the allegations.
“This entire episode points to a well-planned conspiracy. The truth is, ever since I joined the Congress party, a particular lobby has been continuously trying to stop and defame me. This is the same lobby that once tried to form the Birsa Congress, attempted to break away Congress MLAs, and also played a role in preventing our merger during the last assembly term,” Yadav said in a social media post.
“Well, let them continue with their conspiracy. As far as raising questions related to public interest is concerned, if this causes inconvenience to anyone, I want to make it clear that as long as I live, I will stand strong as the voice of the people,” he added.
Clarifying the CCTV footage from the assembly, recorded around 11 am on December 10, Yadav said the claim that he was handing over a pen drive to Babulal Marandi was completely false, baseless and imaginary.
“The video clearly shows that my conversation with Babulal Marandi ji was about a news item published in a newspaper. I myself was going to raise that issue in the assembly, but Babulal Marandi ji had already raised it in the House. After that, when I came out of the assembly premises—from the same gate from which most MLAs exit—I coincidentally had a discussion with him regarding the news item. The claim of handing over or receiving any object is completely false,” he added.
For the uninitiated, Yadav and Marandi were once very close. Yadav was second-in-command of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM), which split after Marandi decided to merge it with the BJP following the 2019 assembly elections.
While Marandi and the majority of his supporters joined the BJP, two other legislators—Pradeep Yadav and Bandhu Tirkey — joined the Congress. After the INDIA bloc government returned to power in 2024, Yadav, a five-term legislator from Poraiyahat, was appointed the legislature party leader by the Congress leadership.
This is also not the first time that internal bickering within the Congress has come to the fore. Two days before Marandi raised the issue in the assembly, Yadav had a heated exchange with state health minister Irfan Ansari over a calling attention motion moved by the former. Even the Speaker lost his cool and intervened between the two.
