Bihar BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Singh alias Bablu, a close relative of Sushant Singh Rajput, on Monday lashed out at Sanjay Raut for making controversial remarks about the deceased actor's family, especially his bereaved father, and threatened to sue the Shiv Sena MP for defamation.
Bablu, who had accompanied Rajput's family to Mumbai for performing the last rites after the 34-year-old was found dead at his Bandra residence on June 14, was left fuming by a piece written by Raut for "Saamna", the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece, and the Rajya Sabha members refusal to back down.
In the piece, Raut had alleged that the actor whose suicide is now being probed by the CBI had been anguished over the "second marriage" of his father and did not have cordial relations with his family, hinting that this might have caused him mental distress and driven him to suicide at the pinnacle of his career.
Sources close to the actor's family deny that his father KK Singh, an FIR lodged by whom at Rajiv Nagar police station in Patna had triggered a tug of war between the dispensations in Bihar and Maharashtra, had tied the knot again after his mother died in 2002.
When asked for comments, Bablu, who has been the only member of the family to speak on the issue, the father choosing to maintain a stoic silence and elder sisters occasionally sharing their thoughts on social media, hit the roof.
"I had a good impression of Sanjay Raut. But his cheap (phoohad) comments have left me disgusted. I would like to warn him that he should refrain from talking such nonsense. Else I may consider slapping him with a case of defamation", said the MLA.
"He should be ashamed of using such language against an elderly person, that too who has been devastated by a tragedy", said Bablu referring to his 74-year-old bereaved uncle, who has accused actress Rhea Chakraborty and her family members of abetting his son's suicide, subjecting him to mental torture and cheating him financially.
The father made a request for handing over the matter to the CBI when Maharashtra governments insistence that Bihar had "no jurisdiction" in the matter led to a stalemate and things came to a flashpoint with a young IPS officer from Patna, who went to Mumbai for heading the investigation, was forcibly quarantined by municipal authorities there.
The Centre promptly gave its assent to the recommendation for a CBI probe sent by the Nitish Kumar government, leaving the Shiv Sena, which heads the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, deeply annoyed.
Meanwhile, the controversial remarks by Raut, whose party president Uddhav Thackeray is the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, drew condemnation from political circles in Bihar cutting across party lines.
While JD(U) leader Sanjay Singh, predictably, rubbished Rauts remarks and called him "mentally sick" (maansik roop se bimar), the opposition RJD, notwithstanding its alliance with the Congress which shares power in Maharashtra, accused the western state of trying to derail the investigation.
"It has been the Maharashtra government's attitude, since the very beginning, to divert the attention and thereby derail the investigation. The Shiv Sena leaders latest gimmicks are just another attempt in the same direction", said senior RJD leader Jayaprakash Narayan Yadav.
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