AMIT GUPTA
Ranchi, Dec. 1: If Madhu Koda is feeling at home in Birsa Munda jail, it’s because he has three of his former cabinet colleagues for company.
He spent the day today playing carrom with two of them, Anosh Ekka and Harinarayan Rai. Kamlesh Singh seemed bitter about his arrest yesterday and hence did not join them, busy as he was trying to convince jail officials to allow him to go to Hussainabad to file his nomination.
Sent to 14 days’ judicial custody yesterday by a vigilance court, Koda, sources inside the jail revealed, looked comfortable in a pair of track pants. He was cheerful too, save his initial irritation at not being allowed to bring along prescription medicines.
Asked if he needed medicines, the Singhbhum MP and former chief minister is understood to have shot back, “Yes I do. But, the police did not give me time to bring them along with me.”
Jail superintendent Deepak Vidyarthi was considerate and only too happy to abide by special judge (vigilance) Binoy Kant Khan’s directive to provide his star inmate “adequate/required medical facilities”.
He asked his men to bring Koda his medicines based on a prescription that was attached with the court papers.
Koda and the three, who make up one-fourth the state’s erstwhile cabinet, have been housed in separate rooms in the upper division ward reserved for VVIP prisoners. They share a common balcony. And that’s where they spend most of the time.
Ekka and Rai have been in jail since August 17 and when they were joined by Koda and Singh in the last 24 hours, it was like meeting old friends. “Alas, there was no quorum. Otherwise, they could have held a cabinet meeting for old times’ sake,” joked one of the helpers provided to them by the jail superintendent.
“Mujhe election jitney dijiye. Yehi log damad ki tarah ijjat karenge (Let me win the elections. Then, these people (read Congress) will respect me like a son-in-law)”, Singh said moments after he pleaded with senior jail officials to speed up paper work so that he wasn’t late for filing his nomination for Hussainabad in Palamau.
Apart from the tight security — home secretary J.B. Tubid is monitoring it personally — the former chief minister and his cabinet colleagues have been provided a few other facilities.
They are been kept away from other prisoners and have been allowed to have mattresses and newspapers along with a cook and a few helpers who have been handpicked from among the inmates.
All four are banking heavily on the ongoing elections. Koda’s wife, Geeta, is among the seven candidates _ she is contesting Jagganathpur _ he has fielded under the banner of a Jai Bharat Samanta Party, the political arm of his Jharkhand Nav Nirman Morcha.
While Ekka is contesting the Simdega and Kolebira seats, Rai is fighting from Jarmundi and Singh from Hussainabad. They all want to project themselves as “martyrs” but sadly can’t campaign. Nor are they in touch with their supporters.
For once, the phone jammers installed in the jail premises seem to be working fine.
Oh! boy!. Am I glad to see these rascals behind bars.
I just wish more of them could be there with them.
Regretfully, I have to state, they will soon be out on bail.
If only they could remain in jail as long as their cases are finally not decided.
They will go out and sabotage and delay the system for so long that people will soon forget their crimes.
I repeat what I have been saying earlier, these criminals should not be freed on bail. Then they will try to expedite their trials instead of asking for repeated adjournments under some pretext or other.
No comments:
Post a Comment