3 more RJD MLAs return, Lalu accuses Nitish of poaching MLAs

Three more RJD MLAs, who were reportedly part of the rebel group that broke away yesterday, are said to have returned to the party today.

With this, the total number of MLAs who have stuck to RJD has gone up to 9.

Yesterday, nine of the 13 RJD MLAs were given permission to sit as a separate group in the Assembly after claims were made that they have quit the party.

The nine MLAs today attended a legislature party meeting of the Assembly called by Lalu Prasad.

Three MLAs in addition to the six who were paraded before the media yesterday evening turned up for the meeting at the residence of former chief minister Rabri Devi.

Earlier, an angry RJD chief attacked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for the defection."He is a scandal master. After divorce with BJP he is going to any extent to poach MLAs of rival parties," Prasad told reporters after flying down from Delhi.

He blamed Kumar for hatching a conspiracy with Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary to split the RJD. "The whole world saw his conspiracy which went awry," he said.

However, the Speaker rubbished the allegation levelled by Prasad and said the decision was lawful.

"I do not know who is saying what on television channels ... but the Assembly secretariat has taken a right decision," Chaudhary told PTI.

"The Assembly Secretariat decision is lawful," he emphasised.

Three MLAs Ramlakhan Ram Raman, Anirudh Kumar and Jitendra Kumar Rai turned up for the meeting in addition to the six who denied that they had quit.

The six Abdul Gafoor, Lalit Yadav, Faiyyaz Ahmad, Durga Prasad Singh, Chandrasekhar and Akhtar-ul Islam Sahin were paraded before the media yesterday evening.

Four of the 13 MLAs including Samrat Chaudhary, who is Chief Whip in the Assembly, Akhtarul Iman, Javed Iqbal Ansari and Raghvendra Pratap Singh did not attend the meeting.

Legislature party leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui and party Secretary General and MP Ramkripal Yadav, among others, were present at the meeting at the meeting at the 10 Circular road residence of Rabri Devi.

Ramkripal Yadav accused the chief minister of engineering defection to save his minority government.Bhai Birendra alleged that Samrat Chaudhary fraudulently acquired the signatures of the MLAs.

Durga Prasad Singh, who figured among the 13, said he had not left the party and said he could speak about his signature only after seeing the papers submitted to the Speaker.

RJD has 22 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Assembly.