Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah was stuck in an elevator along with three other senior party leaders for about 40 minutes at the State guest house in Patna late on Thursday night. The State government said it was a case of “overloading.”
Mr. Shah visited Patna on Thursday to participate in a private function. After a meeting with the local party leaders at night, he and three party colleagues took the elevator on the ground floor of the guest house at around 11 p.m. The lift stopped just short of the first floor. The metal doors of the lift were also jammed.
Later, the security personnel cut the steel doors of the elevator to pull out Mr. Shah and others. Mr. Shah left for Delhi on Friday morning.
Meanwhile, the incident prompted RJD chief Lalu Prasad to take a dig at Mr. Shah. “ Itna mota aadmi ko lift mein ghusna hi nahi chahiye, Bihar ka lift chhota chhota hai” (a man as huge as Amit Shah shouldn’t have entered the lift as Bihar lifts are small), Mr. Prasad told media persons.
Soon BJP leader and Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajiv Pratap Rudy hit back at Mr. Lalu Prasad. “This shows the mentality of the State government and it is not a very unusual utterance by Lalu Prasad, now a friend of Nitish Kumar.”
Later, other BJP leaders too slammed the State government for the incident. They said it might have well been a “conspiracy” against the party president. “All day they [JD-U and RJD leaders] keep speaking ill of the BJP and its president. Conspiracy cannot be ruled out,” senior BJP leader C.P. Thakur said.
