Tej Pratap detained for supporting Bihar bandh over NEET paper leak

Former Bihar minister Tej Pratap Yadav was on Sunday sent to jail for trying to enforce the State-wide bandh called a day ago by students’ unions over the NEET paper leak, his lawyer claimed.

The alleged “wrongful arrest” led his estranged younger brother Tejashwi, the RJD working president who is said to have played a role in his expulsion from the party headed by their father Lalu Prasad a year ago, to come out in his support.

According to Jagannath Singh, the lawyer of Tej Pratap Yadav, who now heads Janshakti Janata Dal, the ex-minister has been sent to the Beur Central Jail on the outskirts of the city, after being remanded to judicial custody by a magistrate.

“But the fact remains that he was arrested from a Patna mall at 7.30 pm yesterday and the FIR got lodged at the police station concerned only around 12.15 am on Sunday. Tomorrow, I shall be moving before a competent court for bail, where I will also highlight the anomaly,” the lawyer said.

The police did not comment on Tej Pratap Yadav’s “wrongful” arrest.

Notably, Yadav has been booked for supporting the Bihar bandh called by Left-wing students’ unions over the NEET paper leak issue.

He had been detained by the police Saturday morning and let off shortly afterwards, only to be arrested later, the lawyer said.

Tejashwi Yadav, who returned to the city after a long vacation abroad, flew into a rage upon learning about the arrest of “my big brother”.

“My big brother has been arrested wrongfully, and booked under false charges. I have learnt that a number of MLAs of my party have also been rounded up for supporting the bandh. The BJP-led Government in Bihar is hereby warned to withdraw all the cases against bandh supporters, else we shall launch a massive stir,” said Yadav, who is the leader of the Opposition in the State assembly.

He claimed that it was appalling that such coercive action was being taken in Bihar even though the Government at the Centre had agreed to withdraw all cases against the protesters in Delhi.

“The chief minister (Samrat Choudhary), who enjoys no popular sentiment and is himself named in criminal cases, must come to his senses. I have also heard that AK47 rifles were pointed at bandh supporters,” the RJD leader said.

Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who is engaged in a fierce electoral battle with the BJP in the bypoll to Bankipur assembly seat, vacated by the saffron party’s national president Nitin Nabin, claimed that Tej Pratap Yadav was “being targeted for supporting me”.

“We have repeatedly complained to the Election Commission that all those who are supporting the Jan Suraaj Party are being harassed by the police and the administration in Patna at the instance of the ruling BJP. Tej Pratap Yadav had recently declared that he will support the Jan Suraaj Party in the bypoll. This must be the reason that he too is being targeted,” Kishor alleged.

Notably, Tej Pratap Yadav had earlier fielded social activist Veena Mandavi as the Janshakti Janata Dal candidate in the bypoll.

After her nomination papers got rejected, Yadav, who is reluctant to back RJD candidate Rekha Gupta, has come out in support of Kishor, who is so far not aligned with any of the political coalitions in the State.

Yadav’s arrest was also strongly condemned by his Singapore-based elder sister Rohini Acharya, who had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as an RJD candidate from Saran, but has given up politics after a bitter tiff with Tejashwi.

In a post on X, Acharya alleged that her brother’s arrest, on “baseless and false charges”, was “tyranny of the Samrat Choudhary government” and asked, “Is supporting the youth in their demands for a better education system a crime?”

“Being arrested for a protest demonstration is clearly a repressive and tyrannical act by the government, which is scared of the growing discontent. The Samrat Choudhary Government is misusing the police to intimidate political opponents”, Acharya added.