Tejashwi says didn't have moustache at time of scam; BJP not buying it

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi once again urged Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to sack Tejashwi

RJD leader and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday said the allegations of corruption against him were lies and a conspiracy by the BJP, led by Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after attending his first Cabinet meeting since the CBI raids against him.

Tejashwi, the younger son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad, argued that the allegations being levelled against him were related to events which occurred in 2004, when he was a 14-year-old minor.

Tejashwi has made it clear that he will not resign despite alliance partner and Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, calling upon him to come clean. Tejashwi has been named as an accused in a CBI case in connection with benami property. 

Instead, Yadav said he would go to the people to explain how and why the BJP, led by Shah and Modi, has conspired against him. "This allegation is of 2004 when I was merely 14 years old, and my moustache and beard had not begun to sprout on my face. Do you think a minor like me would have committed a scam?"

Further, Tejashwi stressed that the grand alliance in Bihar, comprising Lalu's RJD, the Nitish-led JD (U), and Congress, remained intact. 

BJP not buying Tejashwi's defence

Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi refused to buy Tejashwi's defence that he was a minor "without a moustache" at the time of the land-for-hotels deal.

"When Tejashwi Yadav became the owner of the property, he had turned an adult with a moustache and a beard," Modi said in a statement here.

"He cannot put a veil on his crime by pleading that he was a minor at that time," added Modi.

The BJP leader claimed that the Kochhar brothers had sold a commercial property on February 25, 2005, in the form of a three-acre land parcel in Patna, through 10 sale deeds for Rs 1.47 crore, to Delight Marketing, in which Sarla Gupta, the wife of former Union minister Prem Chand Gupta, was a director.

After the tender was awarded to Sujata Hotel, owned by the Kocchars, the ownership of Delight Marketing also changed hands from Sarla Gupta to Rabri Devi and Tejashwi Yadav between 2010 and 2014, he alleged.

Modi dared Tejashwi to announce that he did not own the said land, on which Bihar's biggest mall was coming up.

"Tejashwi should also announce that he does not own a four-storied building at New Friends Colony in Delhi, the value of which is Rs 115 crore today," he said.

The BJP leader once again urged Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to sack Tejashwi.

"When Tejashwi Yadav and his family have refused to resign, should the CM not show the courage to sack him?" he wondered.