Tejaswi calls FIR "political vendetta"

A day after JD(U) asked him to come clean, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Prasad Yadav today virtually ruled out his resignation, while dubbing the FIR registered against him under various anti-graft provisions as "political vendetta."
"The FIR (in land-for-hotels case) is part of a political vendetta. BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are conspiring against me and family members out of political reasons," Yadav told reporters after coming out of a cabinet meeting.
He said "everybody knows that they (BJP) are afraid of Laluji. But, it was not known that they are afraid of even a youth of 28 years of age.

"Can you believe that a child of 14 years of age whose moustache has even not come will indulge in corruption?" he said and dubbed the FIR as "farzi" (fake).
The FIR was lodged in connection with a private party allegedly giving three acres of land in 2004 in Patna to them in return of getting license to run two IRCTC hotels at Ranchi and Puri when Lalu Prasad was Railway minister.
Highlighting his good work and clean image as minister, he said "from the first day I entered office I have been adhering to zero tolerance to corruption and has not done anything wrong in dispensing the responsibility. When a man at an age of 28 is not indulging in any corruption, how can he indulge in corrupt practises at an age of 14."

Yadav said BJP was after him because he had highlighted the prime minister's "broken promises" to youths, farmers and workers and asserted that the RJD would not rest till they ousted the saffron party not only from Bihar but from the entire country.

Yadav, who holds charge of Road Construction, Building Construction and Backward and Extremely Backward Castes Welfare, said "We'll go to the people of Bihar and tell them everything."
Yadav, who is also the leader of 80-member RJD legislature party, said "the Grand Alliance is intact and will continue to run."
He vented anger on a section of media and called them "goonda" who "on tune of BJP" was out to break the Grand Alliance government in the state.

While Tejaswi Yadav was speaking to media persons at the state secretariat, his Health Minister brother Tej Pratap Yadav was standing behind him.
In the cabinet meeting, Yadav met Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the first time after his party in a terse message to him yesterday had asked to "come out with facts in public against the accusations."
Yesterday after a prolonged meeting chaired by Nitish Kumar, JD(U) had delivered a tough message to him to "come clean on accusations by explaining with facts against charges," but had stopped short of demanding his resignation.
The message had come amid signal of widening rift between the JD(U) and the RJD and through which JD(U) made it clear that it could in no case make any compromise with Nitish Kumar's clean image.

Meanwhile, a group of people claiming themselves as member of "Krishna Sena" squatted on the rail tracks at Hajipur protesting the registration of FIR against Yadav.
"The agitators protested from 11.15 AM to 11.50 AM at Hajipur station. They were removed by Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel," East Central Railway (ECR) spokesman Rajesh Kumar said.
He said movement of two trains were effected due to the agitation for a brief period.