Shivanand Tiwary Lalu Yadav’s party leader gets 1 year in jail in defamation case filed by Sanjay Kumar Jha

A Patna court sentenced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) veteran Shivanand Tiwari to one year in prison on Tuesday in a criminal defamation case.

The Patna MP/MLA court also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Tiwari in the case filed by his foe-turned-friend and current Bihar minister Sanjay Kumar Jha five years ago.

The case was filed by the Janata Dal (United) leader in 2018 when Nitish headed the NDA 2.0 government in Bihar.

However, the RJD vice president was granted provisional bail and given 30 days to appeal against the order, as stated by the complainant’s counsel, Madhukar Anand, to India Today TV.

Taking potshots at the JD(U)-RJD ruling alliance, the BJP called the court decision nothing but a result of the ‘sanskriti and sanskar (legacy)’ of the RJD. Reminding Tiwari of his age and the subsequent ‘generation gap’ that exists with respect to the youth, BJP spokesperson Kuntal Krishnan suggested that it was time for Tiwari to think about “hanging up his boots”.

Tiwari, a prominent figure in Bihar politics for over five decades, has close ties with both Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar and has been part of both parties.