Lalu scraps RJD Delhi unit after PM protester found party member

Tags: Santosh Kumar Suman, RJD, Lalu Prasad Yadav
NEW DELHI: RJD's Delhi unit was disbanded by party chief Lalu Prasad on Saturday after the man, who protested against the Prime Minister at a conference in New Delhi, was found to be the head of its state legal cell. "I strongly condemn it. Santosh Kumar Suman was made a member of the party by the Delhi state unit without verifying his credentials. He was made the in-charge (of the legal cell) one-and-half-year back," party chief chief Lalu Prasad told reporters from Patna. "When we verified about him after this incident today, it came to light that he had earlier also written against the Prime Minister. Hence I have disbanded the entire Delhi unit of RJD. I will reconstitute it once I am back to Delhi in the evening," he said. Prasad also said he will write to the concerned Bar Council to cancel the licence of Suman, who is a lawyer. Prasad's close associate and party MP Ramkripal Yadav said, "RJD is with UPA and cannot allow any such act. This has nothing to with our party. Somebody did it as an individual and we have taken action." Meanwhile, arch rival JD-U backed Suman saying the protest by the young lawyer was an act of 'satyagarah' (protest for truth). "It was a display of personal courage by him (Suman). This is individual satyagrah. He neither harmed anybody nor vandalised furnitures but only reflected the angst among people at large over the government's so-called reform measures," JD-U chief Sharad Yadav said in New Delhi. At the same time, he added that such individual courage alone cannot solve the problem unless people unite on such issues. Earlier at an international conference here, 32-year-old Santosh Kumar Suman, a member of the Supreme Court Bar Association, stood on the desk, took off his shirt and shouted, "Prime Minister, go back. Roll back diesel prices" as soon as the Prime Minister got up to deliver his address. The conference, organised by Indian Law Institute, was attended by legal luminaries from across Asia besides Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia and law minister Salman Khurshid.