Bihar Assembly Election: With hopes held high for Tejashwi, are chances of Lalu's early release heightened?

As RJD-led Mahagatbandhan was predicted to have a greater chance of winning in the 2020 Bihar Assembly election during the exit polls, the party's supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav, who is now detained in jail, can expect an early release, if his youngest son Tejashwi Yadav makes it to the Chief Minister chair.

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RJD chief Lalu Prasad, who is serving a jail term in Ranchi in fodder scam cases, could not secure bail as the Jharkhand High Court on Friday deferred the hearing on his application till November 27 after the CBI sought time to file a written reply in the case.

He completed half of his jail sentence in one of the cases and was expected to have been granted bail on Tuesday.

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The Jharkhand High Court had, on October 9, granted bail to Lalu in the Chaibasa treasury case (Rs 37.7 crore fraudulent withdrawal). Lalu was granted bail in 2019, in the Deogarh treasury case (Rs 84.5 lakh fraudulent withdrawal).

The Dumka treasury case (embezzlement of Rs 3.13 crore) is likely to come up in the second week of November.

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“Lalu Ji has already been granted bail in two cases - Deoghar treasury and Chaibasa treasury - where he had served half of the jail sentence in which he was awarded 3.5 years of imprisonment. Now, in the third case, the Dumka treasury, half of his jail sentence will be over on November 9,” his lawyer Prabhat Kumar had said, dwelling at length on how Lalu could walk free only when he gets bail in the Dumka case.

The three Jharkhand districts - Dumka, Deogarh and Chaibasa - were part of an undivided Bihar under Lalu's chief ministership between 1990 and 1997.

Tejashwi Yadav, earlier in his campaigns, had said his father will come out of jail on his birthday on November 9 after securing bail in a fodder scam case, and incumbent Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will have his farewell the next day.

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The counting of votes in the Bihar polls started in the state on Tuesday. Almost all the exit polls had predicted a win for the RJD-led Grand Alliance, which has projected Tejashwi Yadav as its chief ministerial candidate.

(With inputs from bureau, PTI)