BJP MLC suspended from party for sexual harassment in Patna
PATNA: Facing all-round criticism for an alleged act of misbehavior by one of its legislators on a fellow lady legislator inside the House, the opposition BJP on Friday suspended the accused MLC, Lal Babu Prasad, from primary membership of the party.
The action comes a day after Lal Babu Prasad was dropped from BJP’s reconstituted state executive committee. Sources said Prasad, who was vice-president of the saffron party’s state unit in the outgoing committee, was dropped after the alleged incident on the Legislative Council premises.
“Lal Babu Prasad has been placed under suspension from the party with immediate effect. He would soon be issued a show-cause notice by the party,” senior BJP leader and MLC Vinod Narayan Jha told The New Indian Express.
BJP’s action against Prasad followed scorching criticism from the ruling grand alliance parties, especially RJD, which accused the saffron party’s leadership of following an anti-women attitude and trying to keep the matter under wraps.
“The BJP people are so rowdy that they even do not mind misbehaving with a lady legislator inside the House. Imagine what they would be doing outside. Shameless,” RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav wrote on Twitter.
With two of its legislators involved in the issue, the saffron party’s senior leadership was in a quandary for two days over what to do. But the unseemly turn the incident had taken forced the leadership to take action on the alleged originator of the problem.
After Prasad allegedly misbehavior with Nutan Singh, an MLC from BJP’s ally LJP, and wife of BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Bablu, on Wednesday, an ugly scuffle broke out on the House premises between Lal Babu Prasad and Neeraj Kumar Bablu. Sources said an enraged Bablu had delivered a number of blows to Prasad. Many legislators and some journalists witnessed the incident, but the two BJP leaders had denied it in public.
Senior BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who had reportedly tried a rapprochement between Prasad and Bablu was criticised by RJD, JD(U) and Congress for covering up the matter.
“Action should be taken against Sushil Modi for his cover-up act. It is only due to RJD’s protests that BJP leaders took action on this serious matter of the violation of a lady legislator’s dignity,” said deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav.