Nitish may fall fodder to the Rs 950-crore scandal next

The fodder scam has left RJD chief Lalu Prasad neck-deep in trouble and his friend-turned-foe chief minister Nitish Kumar and his JD(U) might not escape unscathed either.

The fodder scam has left RJD chief Lalu Prasad neck-deep in trouble and his friend-turned-foe chief minister Nitish Kumar and his JD(U) might not escape unscathed either. Kumar, apparently, received Rs 1.40 crore during the 1995 assembly elections from scam kingpin SB Sinha, and now, he could be the next person to be probed by the CBI.

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On September 20, in response to a petition seeking a CBI probe against Kumar, the Jharkhand high court asked the agency to file a reply by November 22.

The order has brought hope to the RJD. “We will wait and see how the judiciary treats him,” said RJD’s Ram Kripal Yadav.

In his statement to the CBI, Sinha — an official of the Animal Husbandry Department who died in 1999 — had allegedly said Rs 1.40 crore was handed to Kumar at a Delhi-based hotel. Besides, Rs 40 lakh was given to party spokesperson Shivanand Tiwari and cash was given to Munger MP Rajiv Ranjan Lallan too.

Petitioner Mithilesh Kumar Singh, a socialist leader from Buxar who had accessed the documents from the CBI under RTI, said, “After receiving the money, Nitish even made a call to Sinha to thank him.”

Singh’s petition was turned down by the CBI court in December 2012 after the CBI argued that it was not possible to add Kumar as accused in the case at that advanced stage.