Patna: In an embarrassing twist for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar, one of the party’s MLAs from the state’s Darbhanga district has accused a fellow MLA and a party MP of plotting to kill him and his son over a land dispute.
In an FIR registered earlier this month against over 30 named and 70 unnamed accused — among them Madhubani MP Ashok Kumar Yadav and Keoti MLA Murari Mohan Jha — BJP’s Alinagar MLA Mishri Lal Yadav has accused Ashok and Jha of sending armed men to attack him at his Darbhanga residence.
ThePrint has a copy of the FIR, which has been registered under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Speaking to ThePrint Friday, the Alinagar MLA claimed that on 2 August he was taking a walk outside his house in Darbhanga district’s Raiyam village when he was confronted by over 100 people, who allegedly started abusing him and threatened to kill him.
He also alleged that the group was armed. “It was the local villagers who saved me,” he added.
Ashok Yadav and Jha have refuted Yadav’s allegations, terming them as “baseless and fabricated” and accused Yadav — a former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader who joined the BJP camp in 2020 — of falsely implicating them.
Meanwhile, ever since the matter of the FIR was publicised a news report Friday, it has left the BJP in Bihar red-faced, exposing the “infighting and indiscipline within the BJP in the Mithilanchal region — an area where the party had performed well in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections”, said a third party speaking on condition of anonymity.
The MLA also attributed the dispute to “turf war over Keoti” from where Yadav “wants his son Dharmendra Yadav to contest the 2025 assembly elections”.
ThePrint also reached the official spokesperson of BJP in Bihar, Prem Ranjan Patel, who said that the party was aware of the cases. “We will look into the matter if either of the two parties approach us,” he said.
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Allegations and counter-allegations
According to Yadav, he had informed the senior superintendent of police (SSP) of Darbhanga about the 2 August incident and was asked to submit a written complaint at the Raiyam police station, which he did on 9 August.
“Madhubani MP Ashok Yadav and MLA Jha were behind the conspiracy to kill me,” he alleged.
The Alinagar MLA further alleged that the reason behind the enmity was his involvement in getting government land distributed among the landless people in his constituency.
He accused the head of a religious body in Keoti of “illegally occupying” government land and Jha and Ashok of supporting the religious leader. Yadav further added that he and his son, also a BJP leader, had been opposing the attempts of the religious leader and his followers, who is also named in the FIR registered by him.
ThePrint reached the leader, Ram Udit Das, also known asMouni Baba, for comment over phone, but received no response till the time of publication of this report. The article will be updated once a response is received.
Meanwhile, Ashok Yadav and Murari Mohan Jha rubbished Yadav’s allegations and said that they were “baseless and fabricated”.
Speaking to ThePrint Friday Jha said, “The whole case is fabricated and aimed at tarnishing my image”.
He also claimed that he was in Delhi between 18 July and 3 August, to undergo surgery for hernia. After returning from Delhi, he said, he had met police officials in Patna and complained to them about being falsely implicated in the case by Yadav.
The Keoti MLA on his part alleged that Yadav and his son were involved in grabbing land belonging to the religious body and were trying to defame him.
MP Ashok Yadav too claimed that the FIR against him was “concocted”.
“The incident reportedly took place on 2 August, while the FIR was lodged on 9 August. I was in Delhi to attend the Lok Sabha proceedings during the period,” said Ashok Yadav.
He added: “I will raise the matter in the party forum and to the Lok Sabha speaker about how the police lodged an FIR against me even without seeking clarification from me.”
Turf war
Mishri Lal Yadav had served as the RJD MLA from Keoti assembly seat till 2019. The RJD denied him a ticket in the 2020 assembly elections, after which he crossed over to the BJP camp.
He received a ticket from Mukesh Sahani’s Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) — then a BJP ally — from Alinagar for the 2020 polls and won. But when the BJP’s alliance with VIP ended last year, he joined the BJP.
“Yadav originally hails from Keoti and wants his son to contest from there in 2025. He and his son have been ‘disturbing’ the BJP workers in Keoti (Jha is an MLA from Keoti),” a BJP MLA from the area told ThePrint, requesting anonymity.
The BJP had won both Darbhanga and Madhubani with impressive margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
However, the party is now “facing infighting and indiscipline in Mithilanchal” which is causing it “worry” the MLA added.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)