Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav on Wednesday said he will take up with the Election Commission the matter of RJD members of Parliament, including Mohammed Shahabuddin and Anirudh Prasad, alias Sadhu Yadav, being externed from their constituencies.
"I will take like-minded parties into confidence and discuss the issue with the EC," Prasad told PTI in Patna.
Voicing displeasure over the externment by Siwan and Gopalganj district magistrates, he said, "This (externment) amounts to violation of the constitutional rights of a citizen, as the MPs and other leaders who have been externed are voters of that area."
Prasad said, "If at all they were involved in any criminal case, the police would have taken action. If they were found indulging in any electoral malpractice, they could have been arrested."
Siwan district magistrate C K Anil had on February 15 ordered the externment of Siwan Shahabuddin, Chief Minister Rabri Devi's brothers Aniruddh Prasad and Subhash Yadav, Janata Dal (United) Lok Sabha member from Maharajganj Prabhunath Singh and Lok Janshakti Party leader Kali Pandey till February 28.
There were apprehensions that these leaders could vitiate the poll process.
Shahabuddin, lodged in Siwan jail in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Communist Party of India [Marxist-Leninist] activist Munna
Chaudhary, was earlier shifted to Beur jail in Patna on the orders of the Election Commission.
Siwan DM ordered the detention of Shahabuddin in judicial custody though the Patna High court had granted regular bail to him in the murder case.