Video Editor- Vivek Gupta
A local court in Bihar's Madhepura on Monday, 4 October, had acquitted four-time MP Rajesh Ranjan, alias Pappu Yadav, in a 32-year-old kidnapping case.
Speaking to The Quint shortly after he was released from incarceration on Tuesday, 5 October, he remarked that the country isn't safe under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Jan Adhikar Party leader Yadav, who had formerly served as a member of the Lok Sabha, had been lodged in jail for the last five months. He had been taken into police custody in May, initially for violating lockdown norms, and then had been arrested under the kidnapping case.
In an interview taken shortly after he was released from incarceration on Tuesday, Yadav talked about how he had spent his time in jail.
"I spent my time with books. With struggle. With love. I sent 1 year's worth of ration and Rs 10,000 to those families in Darbhanga whose children had died. When floods came, my companions worked for relief. For 5 months, my companions struggled, fought."
Yadav's arrest in May had come at a time when he was actively involved in COVID welfare work, and had found a large number of ambulances parked at BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy’s residence during a raid, news agency PTI had reported.
He further alleged that "drugs mafia, alcohol mafia, ambulance mafia, and nursing home mafia" had conspired against him, resulting in him being sent to jail.
'The Country Isn't Safe With BJP': Pappu Yadav
Lashing out against the BJP's inaction at the time of the Bihar floods and the COVID crisis, Yadav, in an interview with The Quint, said, "Bihar can't stay safe in the hands of such people. The country isn't safe with BJP. Nitish Kumar should think about this."
Yadav, on being asked about the speculations that suggest that the Jan Adhikar Party might form an alliance with the Congress in the upcoming Bihar Assembly bypolls, indicated that the party would contest the by-elections on its own.
The politician further said that the Congress's new ideology, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, was appreciable, and that his party would lend support to the Congress.
Pappu Yadav had been arrested under the charges of kidnapping in May. The charges had related to the alleged kidnapping of Rajkumar Yadav and Umakant Yadav, cousins of politician Shailendra Yadav, in 1989.
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