Tej claims hack, others reach for salt

Patna: RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav did a U-turn on Tuesday, a day after calling two party insiders “snakes” in social media posts, and claimed his Facebook and Twitter accounts had been hacked.

Asked about his post, which was later deleted from Facebook and Twitter, Tej Pratap said: “I never posted anything on social media from my account and I have not written anything like that. Why would I write such things? It is the BJP, RSS and JDU who hacked my account and I will soon lodge police complaints against them.”

Tej Pratap also claimed that he does not know the duo named in the post as the ones spreading canards against him: Subodh Rai and Om Prakash Yadav a.k.a Bhutto. While Rai is an RJD MLC, Bhutto is Tej Pratap’s former personal assistant.

In a post on his Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, Tej Pratap blamed the ruling coalition: “Once again Nitish chacha along with the BJP tried to break my family by hacking my Facebook ID.”

The Tuesday post mentioned his younger brother too, though the original post never mentioned Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. “Listen, you people who have looted the mandate, my family is my life and my brother is my arm, he is a part of my soul,” Tej Pratap wrote in Hindi.

The government leaders rubbished his allegations.

“Bihar’s cyber crime cell is capable of cracking such a small case; if he has the guts he should immediately file the police case. Everything will be clear from where the account was hacked,” said JDU chief spokesperson Sanjay Singh.

BJP state vice-president Devesh Kumar said: “The allegation of Tej Pratap regarding the BJP being involved in hacking his account is baseless. The RJD should first take care of their own party instead of blaming others.”

In the inner circles of the RJD, there were murmurs that the Monday post was a calculated gamble to send a message. There were also whispers that media houses had been alerted by a close associate of Tej Pratap. “They were also told to take a screenshot of the post as it would be deleted after some time and the plan was accordingly executed,” a source close to the RJD first family said under cover of anonymity.

The source insisted that Tej Pratap is feeling neglected in the party after decision-making has virtually gone to his elder brother. Lalu, who had played peacemaker between his sons when Tej Pratap had flared up last month, is undergoing treatment in Mumbai.

Courtesy: The Telegraph