In yet another action against a party legislator for his ‘anti-party activities’ JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, on Friday, suspended Islampur MlA Rajiv Ranjan from the party for six years. Earlier, the party had suspended four MlAs, while serving notice to many, citing the same charge.
Rajiv Ranjan, the JD(U) MlA from Islampur Assembly constituency of Nalanda district, has recently been pushing both the party and the Government to the corner while raising issues of “unabated corruption and the newly-found alliance with the RJD”.
Recently, when the JD(U) MlA had embarrassed the Jitan Ram Manjhi Government, saying “since corruption has become unabated, it’s time that the Government should adopt a new law by the name of “Right to Bribe” in Bihar”.
He had also opposed the grand alliance of his party with the RJD saying the people of the State would not tolerate this alliance with the party which had created jungle raj in the State.
“We’d been fighting against this jungle raj for so many years and had even come to power on this issue and again making an alliance with those forces would not be forgiven by the people of the State,” Rajiv Ranjan had said.
However, soon after such remarks came from the party MlA, a JD(U) leader known as close to Nitish Kumar, said that “now enough was enough” and the party would take some action against Islampur MlA, Rajiv Ranjan.
“Party president Sharad Yadav has suspended Islampur MlA Ranjan for six years for his anti-party activities,” said JD(U) general secretary KC Tyagi, Tyagi also said that the party president has directed all party leaders to maintain discipline and fight for social justice.
“There is no place for any kind of anti-party activities,” said KC Tyagi empathically in the statement. The suspension letter has also been a warning for other senior leaders of the party, who have been making statements contradicting the party’s stand.
“Our party president has also cautioned the top office bearers and the leaders that they should avoid making contradictory statements,” said Tyagi.
Earlier, the party had suspended four party MlAs Gyanendra Singh Gyanoo, Rahul Kumar, Ravindra Rai and Neeraj Kumar Babloo for their anti-party activities. All the four leading a group of dissident JD(U) MlAs had voted against the official party candidate in the recently-concluded Rajya Sabha poll.
The four suspended party MlAs were also asked to present their views before the State Assembly Speaker for why their membership should not be terminated from the House. The disgruntled MlAs have been appearing before the Assembly Speaker with their lawyers on a number of occasions but “the issue remains to linger on”.
“It’s a ploy by the party leaders to harass us on the direction of some senior leaders. Now we don’t have any faith in the Assembly Speaker for justice,” said one of them.
Meanwhile, the recently-suspended party MlA Rajiv Ranjan has charged that the party has taken action against him on the behest of RJD chief lalu Prasad as he has been opposing the grand alliance between the two parties.