PATNA: Even as Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav of RJD held a demonstration in New Delhi over the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal, the state’s ruling JD(U) on Saturday raked up some old charges of sexual harassment against Tejashwi, his brother Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejashwi’s private assistant Mani Yadav.
Three women spokespersons of JD(U) wrote an open letter to Tejashwi and Tej Pratap’s mother and former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi, asking her to inculcate “good moral character” in her sons and ask them to remove people of dubious character from the party.
“Your two sons had unfortunately been forced to pay a price at a young age for eve-teasing in New Delhi. Tejashwi and Tej Pratap had been beaten up by people at three locations in Delhi – Ashoka Hotel, Connaught Place and a Mehrauli farmhouse – on the same day on January 1, 2018 for indecent comments and harassment of girls at New Year’s Day parties,” said the open letter by Anjum Ara, Bharti Mehta and Shweta Biswas.
Referring to newspaper clippings of those incidents in 2008, when Tejashwi and Tej Pratap’s father and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav was the railway minister, the JD(U) leaders accused Rabri Devi of failure to ensure complete education of her sons and teaching them good moral conduct.
The open letter also referred to an FIR registered under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act at Gandhi Maidan police station in 2011 against Mani Yadav, the private assistant of Tejashwi. “He (Mani) also went to jail in the case… We urge you to drive away both from your home and your party such men who consider women only objects of enjoyment,” they wrote.
"Tejashwi is speaking relentlessly on atrocities against women, but his and his brother’s conduct has been very questionable. Instead of engaging in stunts like staging a protest in New Delhi, Tejashwi should explain the charges against him, his brother and the PA," said Anjum Ara.
The open letter came in response to an a similar letter written by Tejashwi to Chief Minister and JD(U) national president Nitish Kumar on Friday. After some JD(U) leaders started raking up these allegations, Tejashwi had dubbed them as “chamchas (sycophants) of Nitish Kumar” and that he did not care about what they said.