Case filed against JD(U) MP who vowed not to oblige people from communities which voted for rivals

A complaint was lodged before a court in Bihar's Muzaffarpur on Thursday against JD(U) MP Devesh Chandra Thakur who had recently vowed not to oblige people from communities which had supposedly voted for rivals in the Lok Sabha poll. The case was lodged by Dilip Kumar Kushwaha, a social worker based in Muzaffarpur, before the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court.

Kushwaha's counsel Hari Om Kumar told reporters "The court has fixed July 2 as the date of hearing on our case. We have prayed that the accused MP be booked under IPC Sections 501 and 505 for hurting sentiments of Kushwahas, Muslims and Yadavs."

The Sections 501 and 505 pertain, respectively, to defamation and creating enmity between communities.



Thakur, a multiple term former MLC, who made his Lok Sabha debut at the age of 71, had rued that Kushwahas voted for his RJD rival "despite being NDA voters, just because the opposition party fielded many persons from the community."

The MP, known to be close to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), had also complained about Muslims not voting for him "just because my party is a BJP ally" and chided Yadavs for their unflinching loyalty towards RJD supremo Lalu Prasad.

Thakur's remarks have evoked unequivocal criticism from the RJD, but mixed responses from the JD(U)-BJP combine. Senior BJP leader and Union minister Giriraj Singh said he empathized with Thakur since "Muslims have never voted for me since I first became an MP in 2014."

Singh, who is known to be a Hindutva hardliner, also alleged that he saw a conspiracy to "finish off Sanatan Dharma and establish an Islamic state".


JD(U) MLC and spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said Thakur was well within his right to voice "anguish (peeda)" over the poll outcome in a constituency he had nurtured for long.

However, BJP OBC Morcha national general secretary Nikhil Anand deplored the JD(U) MP's statement, claiming it "smacked of caste prejudice and militated against the BJP's policy of taking the backward classes along."

Meanwhile, RJD spokesman Mrityunjai Tiwary alleged that the comments of NDA leaders were "divisive" and they had taken a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's polarizing election campaign.