Lalu Prasad shifted to RIMS director's residence amid Covid-19 fear

Jailed RJD chief Lalu Prasad was on Wednesday shifted from the paying ward of the RIMS to the residence of its director to protect him from exposure to coronavirus, a senior official said.

The former Bihar chief minister was shifted as some security guards posted at the paying ward had tested positive for Covid-19, said Dr Manju Gari, the acting director of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (RIMS).

Following detection of infection among the guards, swab samples of the RJD supremo was also sent for examination on July 24, which later came out as negative. Of the three infected attendants, two had gone for home isolation, while one was placed under quarantine at the hospital, Dr Umesh Prasad, who is attending to the ailing RJD supremo at RIMS, said.

The doctor told PTI, he had moved a proposal to the hospital authority as well the district administration to shift Prasad to a safer place as floors below and above the first level, where he has been staying, are Covid wards.

"Everybody agreed to my suggestion and decided to move Prasad to another place within the RIMS premises," he said. The state-run RIMS is one of the designated Covid-19 hospitals in the Jharkhand capital.

The Director's residence was vacant and it was decided to place Prasad there, officials said. Prasad, who also served as the Railway minister in the UPA-I government, has been behind bars since December, 2017 in cases related to the fodder scam in the 1990s in Bihar, when money was fraudulently withdrawn from treasuries in the name of supplying fodder to animals.

He was undergoing treatment at RIMS for multiple ailments. The doctor attending the RJD leader, said earlier after receiving Prasad's Covid test report on July 26, it was decided to monitor his health condition closely and if need arises send the samples again for test. But, no further symptoms for coronavirus have been found, so the samples were not sent for re-examination, he added.