Interacting with riot victims, Lalu, who is out on bail in a fodder scam case, told them that he couldn't come early as he was in jail.
“No attention was paid in the beginning to those living in the relief camps. If they were taken care of initially, the situation today would have been better,” he said, adding he will be visiting the Loi camp and then will be able to tell why people are being displaced from there. “I saw a lot of TV coverage their on the riot victims living in relief camps,” he said.
Referring to SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's controversial comments that those living in camps were not riot victims but political activist, Yadav said, “It was too much and very bad...I have also heard people saying that those living in the camps are not victims” Prasad reminded the SP chief that “minorities had voted with an open heart” for his secular government so much so that even the SP chief had not idea that his party will form a government with such a big a majority.
“Even we had no idea that they (SP) will get such a big majority,” he said.
“I am not criticising anybody. But the kind of attention that should have been given in the beginning was perhaps not given to the issue (condition of riot victims) by the administration,” the RJD chief said.
Asked about the statement of a senior UP official that people were not dying due to cold in relief camps, Lalu said, “All of them have gone mad. Someone else will have to pay for the kind of statements these officials have made”.
