'Wanted to chop off Ram Kripal Yadav's hands': RJD chief's daughter Misa Bharti courts controversy

RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti, who lost Patliputra Parliamentary seat of party rebel Ram Kripal Yadav in 2014, courted controversy at the behest of her 2019 campaign by stating that she wanted to chop-off his hands when he left RJD and joined BJP.

“He (Ram Kripal Yadav) used to cut chaff. We had huge respect for him. However, we stopped respecting him when he went on to join hands with Sushil Kumar Modi. At that time I felt like cutting his hands from the same chaff cutting machine,” Bharti said while addressing a gathering in Patna’s Bikram area on January 16.

Ram Kripal Yadav was earlier a member of the Rashtriya Janata Dal. In 2014, he resigned from his party post and joined BJP. In 2014 general election, he won the Patliputra Lok Sabha seat by defeating Bharti.

Speaking at the event, Bharti said she is now confident of her win this time as she didn’t get enough time to prepare during 2014 polls.

However, her first public meeting has already run into more problems. The local RJD cadre has claimed that Misa sidelined the area MLA and did not invite them to the public meeting. They accused Misa of ignoring the local party workers in decision making and campaign plans for 2019 elections.

Reacting to the accusation, Misa tried to placate party workers by saying that the real campaign was yet to begin. The Lok Sabha campaign will begin after seat-sharing and candidate is finalised, final announcement will be done by party president, she said.