'Laloo fought '95 polls with donation'

patna: the cbi special court on tuesday examined two defence witnesses in connection with the disproportionate asset case against cm rabri devi and rjd supremo laloo prasad yadav. special judge for fodder scam cases s k mishra heard the examination and cross-examination of raj kishore yadav and maya shankar singh of raghopur assembly constituency from where laloo had contested the 1995 assembly election.the thrust of the examination was whether laloo fought the election by means of donation or personal money. the cbi has prosecuted laloo and rabri for allegedly having assets disproportionate to their income. the cbi considers the money spent on the election as laloo’s expense and adds it to his income. laloo’s lawyers are contending that the election was fought on the basis of donation and that the expense cannot be clubbed with his income. the case is an offshoot of the multi-billion fodder scam case in which laloo is one of the key accused. the trial is far from complete with only 22 of the 117 defence witnesses examined so far. defence lawyer p p singh started his examination in chief to show he (laloo) had raised the money as a prelude to establish that his client had fought the assembly election on donation. singh asked raj kishore how he had contributed to the election. raj kishore said laloo intended to fight the 1995 assembly election from danapur. he further said that he (raj kishore) and maya shankar singh had persuaded laloo to contest the election from raghopur and promised to fund it by raising donation. approximately rs 44,000 was spent, he said and added that he had raised rs 2,000 by the way of donation before laloo filed his nomination and rs 4,000 later in which he had personally contributed rs 200 and deposited the money with former minister bhola rai alias uday narain rai of raghopur. at that time, rai was laloo’s election agent. however, when cbi counsel l r ansari asked him if he had given any receipt of the donation money, raj kishore replied in the negative. when ansari asked him if he had taken receipt of the money from bhola rai, he again replied in the negative. ansari again quizzed him if bhola rai noted the contribution to the election fund in any notebook, his reply was again negative. raj kishore had again no answers when asked if he saw bhola rai spending any money on fuel, loudspeaker and boat. raj kishore was then asked how many banners were put up. he was asked if he saw laloo taking or spending money. he was also asked how many meetings laloo had with bhola rai. but raj kishore had no answers. defence lawyer p p singh also examined the next witness maya shankar singh. maya deposed that he had raised rs 5,000 after laloo’s nomination and handed over the money to bhola rai. ansari asked maya the same set of questions in the cross-examination which was posed to raj kishore. maya, too, replied mostly in the negative.