Rebellion may cost his chairmanship

SAMASTIPUR: It seems the district board chairman, Sheel Kumar Rai, has to pay a heavy cost for rebelling against the RJD.
Rai was arrested by the Samastipur Muffassil police on August 25 under various sections of the IPC, 131B/132 of R P Act and 27/30 of Arms Act for creating disturbance and firing at one Ram Vishekh Sahui at a polling booth located at Korbadha village in Samastipur Muffassil police station on April 26 last, the day when votes were cast here for Samastipur parliamentary constituency.Rai himself was fighting the election as an independent candidate as he was denied ticket by RJD.
The trouble started when Sheel Kumar Rai was removed from the post of the RJD district president in the presence of Sadhu Yadav. He was replaced by the former RJD minister and Sarairanjan MLA Ramashray Sahui. Irked over this, he floated his own outfit called Jan Vikas Manch to garner the support of people in the district. He fought the parliamentary elections as an independent candidate but lost to RJD candidate Alok Kumar Mehta. Since then he is at loggerheads with the RJD functionaries here.
Rai later decided to join LJP in a meeting, which was scheduled for July 29 but was deferred for September 10. However, in the meantime he was arrested by the police allegedly only to prevent him from joining LJP. Rai is still languishing in jail as a Samastipur court rejected his bail petition.
LJP president, Ram Vilas Paswan, who was at Samastipur on September 10 failed to meet Rai as scheduled in jail. However, Rai sent a letter of intent from jail expressing his willingness to join LJP stating only LJP could give a substitute to the RJD in Bihar and also help in getting rid of RJD misrule.
According to sources, Rai enjoys support of a majority of the district board members but efforts are being made to dislodge him from the post of chairman. If the version of one of the member is to be believed, Rai will soon have to leave the post of district board chairman - a punishment for rebelling against RJD.