Ram Vilas Paswan cries 'conspiracy' behind Amit Shah's lift incident

NEW DELHI: Crying "conspiracy" over BJP chief Amit Shah's lift incident in Patna, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today wrote a letter to Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking a "high-level probe" into the matter.

In the letter, Paswan said that the incident which happened in the state guest house cannot be termed a "normal one."

"This can be the result of either gross negligence or some conspiracy. I am of the view that there should be a high-level probe in this incident," Paswan, who heads the NDA ally in Bihar Lok Janshakti Party, said in the letter.

He requested the Home Minister to direct the state government to hold a comprehensive probe into the matter.

Scaling up the issue, Paswan suggested that the Centre can also give directions on its own to some competent agency to probe the matter, so that the recurrence of such incidents are checked in future.

On August 21, Shah and Bihar BJP in-charge Bhupendra Yadav had been stuck in the state guest house lift in Patna for about 40 minutes after it stopped a little short of the first-floor alignment level.

While the state BJP called it "negligence" on the part of the state government, the Bihar government said the lift stopped because the weight limit of 340 kg was exceeded. There were four people in the lift -- Shah, Bhupendra Yadav, another senior BJP leader Saudan Singh and RSS leader Nagendraji.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad took jibes at Shah, saying that "Bihar lifts are too small for Shah, who is overweight."