The Superintendent of Birsa Munda Jail had granted special permission to Chief Minister designate Hemant Soren, Congress leader Rajendra Singh and former Bihar Minister Narendra Singh to meet incarcerated Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) on Thursday — a fact that put to rest all the rumours about violation of the jail manual after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s defeat in the recently conducted Assembly polls.
Jail Superintendent Ashok Kumar Choudary on Friday said that he had granted special permission to the trio to meet Prasad at the hospital and in no way can the meeting be considered a violation of the jail manual. “I, in my capacity as the jail superintendent, had granted special permission to three people — Hemant Soren, Rajendra Singh and Narendra Singh — to meet Lalu Prasad on Thursday. The jail manual has not been violated as there is provision for such meetings in the manual,” Choudhary said. As per the jail manual, Prasad is allowed to meet visitors only on Saturdays. The former Chief Minister of Bihar has been serving imprisonment after his conviction in a multimillion fodder scam. A CBI court on December 23, 2017 convicted Prasad in a fodder scam case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs.89 lakh from the Deoghar treasury from year 1991 to 1994 and sent him to jail. A month later, he was convicted in another fodder scam case and sentenced to five years of imprisonment.
He was admitted in the cardiology wing of RIMS the next year after he complained of discomfort while serving imprisonment in the Birsa Munda Jail in Ranchi. Since then, he has been undergoing treatment at the hospital. In 2018, he was referred to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi from where he was later released and sent back to Ranchi. Meanwhile, Sadar Deputy Superintendent of Police Deepak Pandey visited RIMS on Friday and reviewed the security arrangement at the hospital for Prasad. He, however, said that his visit was a part of the police’s regular drill and had nothing to do with the allegations of the violation of the jail manual. “It was one of the fortnightly inspections we do to check the security arrangements at the hospital,” he said.
On Thursday, Chief Minister designate Hemant Soren, Congress leader Rajendra Singh and former Bihar minister Narendra Singh met Prasad at the paying ward of RIMS. The leaders said that it was an informal meeting and they wanted to check on Prasad’s health. Hemant had thanked Prasad after his glorious victory in the elections and sought the latter’s blessings on Thursday.
Prasad has had a history of medical conditions. In August 2014, he underwent two major heart surgeries — one to replace an aortic valve and the other to repair the aorta, at Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai. He has since been under medications.
He has also had four episodes of perianal abscess, an infection in the rectum which may lead to formation of fistula, doctors said. Currently, he is under medication for hypertension, diabetes and heart.