The Bihar government on Saturday rejected news reports that senior civil and police officials were tipped off about the CBI raids on locations linked to Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and his family on Friday.
“It is a totally baseless news,” an official release said.
Quoting sources, reports said Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and State Police Chief P.K. Thakur were alerted by the CBI on Thursday night to the impending raids on the premises of Mr. Prasad, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and other members of the family.
PMO role?
Some reports from New Delhi said the Prime Minister’s Office had informed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar prior to the raids, apprehending law-and-order problems and seeking adequate security measures.
“Information regarding raids was given by the CBI to the Director-General of Police around 7.30 a.m., some time after the raids began following which the police made necessary security arrangements in view of law and order,” the official statement said.
CM away
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been away at Rajgir in his home district of Nalanda since Thursday afternoon reportedly because of health issues.
Mr. Kumar and his party, Janata Dal(U), have remained tight-lipped about the raids, while the Congress, another RJD ally, has backed Mr. Prasad’s claim that those were part of “vendetta politics” by the BJP and the Modi government.
Security reinforcements
Additional security personnel were deployed at the offices of the BJP, the RJD and the JD(U) in Patna while the raids were on.
Additional Director-General of Police (Headquarters) S.K. Singhal said a general alert was sounded across the State in view of the political ramification of the raids.
