Patna: CM Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) on Tuesday mocked RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav for advocating Bharat Ratna for his father and party president Lalu Prasad, asserting that the award was not bestowed on “people involved in scams”. Yadav had on Monday said that Prasad, a former Bihar chief minister, deserved the Bharat Ratna for “giving voice” to the underdogs of the society. Talking to PTI Video, JD(U) national spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad said, “Advocating Bharat Ratna for Lalu Prasad by his son is ridiculous. They can’t think beyond their family. He (Tejashwi) must know that Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award in India… it is not given to people who are involved in scams”. “Tejashwi must understand that great personalities have been conferred with the Bharat Ratna… there is no provision of giving the award to persons involved in scams,” he said. Prasad has been convicted in several fodder scam cases, besides being named in the land-for-hotels and land-for-jobs scams that allegedly took place while he was the railway minister. The young RJD leader had called for Bharat Ratna for his father, while addressing a function on the occasion of the death anniversary of noted socialist leader Karpoori Thakur on Monday. “Just recall the days when late Karpoori Thakur, as the then Bihar chief minister, had introduced quotas for the backward classes, only to be abused by the BJP and its supporters. Years later, the same party conferred on him the Bharat Ratna. This is the power of socialism,” Yadav had said. “We see many people hurling abuses at Lalu ji today in a bid to ingratiate themselves with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These very people will one day bat for a Bharat Ratna for Lalu ji, who gave voice to the voiceless in an era when the depressed classes were denied access to wells, and not allowed to wear new clothes and sit on a cot,” he had claimed.
