Ranchi:
The owner and manager of a luxury hotel here have been booked for hosting the stay of RJD president Lalu Prasad’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav in violation of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in Jharkhand, police said on Friday. An FIR has been registered against the two with the sadar police station under Epidemic Diseases Act, which is in force in the state to check the spread of coronavirus, City Superintendent of police Saurav Kumar said.
Tej Pratap Yadav had stayed in the hotel on arriving in Ranchi from Patna on Wednesday, and from there had gone to meet his jailed father in RIMS the next day. The case was lodged on the complaint of the circle officer of the area, the SP said.
He said no hotel, lodge or dharamshala is allowed to function during the lockdown and that the hotel concerned had hosted the former Bihar minister in violation of the COVID-19 regulations. Yadav was with his father the previous day for nearly two-and-a-half hours in the bungalow of the director of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, where the RJD supremo was shifted recently as a precautionary measure after some staff at the hospital tested positive for COVID-19.
The RJD chief, who has been convicted in several cases of multi-crore rupees fodder scam was lodged at RIMS in the Jharkhand capital. Sources said the RJD chief had summoned his son in the backdrop of his utterances against senior RJD leader and former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh.
After being reportedly reprimanded by his father, Yadav said Singh was like his “guardian” against whom he bore no ill feeling. The maverick leader had made uncharitable remarks against the former union minister recently over his resignation from the post of RJD vice president to protest reported efforts to induct former LJP MP Rama Singh, who has a criminal record, into the party.
He is also understood to have discussed with his father issues relating to assembly election in Bihar due in October-November this year. Yadav’s father-in-law Chandrika Roy, who recently left the RJD and joined the ruling JD(U), has hinted that his daughter Aishwarya might enter the poll fray.
Yadav’s marriage with Aishwarya has gone sour and their divorce case is pending with a Patna court. The former Health minister of Bihar is currently the MLA from Mahua in Vaishali district and there are speculations that his estraged wife might fight against him in the election.
