Laloo, Mishra Deny Hand In Fodder Scam

Singh, who has spent the last three months in jail, told special CBI judge S K Lal that former Bihar Assembly Speaker Radha Nandan Jha ran the fodder racket with the blessings of Yadav and Mishra. Singh says he can produce documents in a week to prove the bureaucrat-politician nexus in the embezzlement of funds. Yadav says his name has been dragged in because the media is out to malign him.

Jagannath Mishra issued a statement yesterday saying that he was pained to find his name mentioned by the media in the fodder scam. He dismissed as unjust and unethical reports in a section of the press that the CBI had sent a confidential note to the Patna High Court saying that he was involved in animal husbandry scandal.

During my period, so far as I remember, there was hardly any significant overdraft. Therefore it is very unjust and unethical to drag my name into the scam in which I had no hand in any manner whatsoever.

Denying that he had patronised any officer of the animal husbandry department or for that matter of the department, the former chief minister said records would show that he had raised the issue of excessive withdrawal by animal husbandry department on the floor of the assembly and through statements many a time.

Meanwhile, Janata Dal MLA R K Rana, and alleged swindler and a confidante of the Chief Minister, has again been remanded to three days in judicial custody.