Patna: The age discrepancy in the affidavits of two sons of RJD president Lalu Prasad — in which the younger one has been mentioned as one year older than his elder brother — is snowballing into a controversy with the BJP urging the Election Commission (EC) to probe the papers of the younger brother, Tejaswi Prasad Yadav.
The RJD supremo, however, appeared unperturbed and said what was mentioned in the voter card was final.
“They have mentioned their age in the affidavit as it is given in their voter identity card… age in voter card is final… If age is written as 80 on the voter ID, it will be final and has to be mentioned in the nomination papers,” Lalu told reporters. “They are making unnecessary controversy about the issue,” he said in an apparent dig at the BJP. The affidavit filed by Tejaswi, who is contesting from the Raghopur Assembly seat in Vaishali district, shows his age as 26 years. Like his father, he too took recourse to the voter card logic and said, “One has to enter the age as is written in voter ID.” “There might be a printing error in the voter ID,” he said. “What’s so big about it?”
Meanwhile, the affidavit filed by RJD chief’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav while submitting his nomination from the Mahua Assembly seat in Vaishali district shows his age as 25 years.
Case against Lalu over beef remarks
In mounting trouble for RJD supremo Lalu Prasad over his controversial remarks that ‘Hindus too eat beef’, a case was filed in a court here on Tuesday charging him with hurting religious sentiments of the majority community, PTI reports from Araria (Bihar). The case was filed in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Ashok Kumar Shukla by a native of Tamganj village under Narpatganj police station, Pintu Kumar who charged Prasad with hurting the religious sentiments of Hindus by claiming that some from the community too eat beef. The case against the RJD leader has been filed under sections 295 (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 298 (uttering words with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person), 504 ( intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 ( statements conducing public mischief) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of IPC.