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Laloo won't allow 'puppet' to take oath

Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav said he would not allow the ''puppet'' National Democratic Party government in Bihar to take the oath of office this evening.

Reacting to Governor Vinod Chandra Pande's invitation to NDA legislature party wing leader Nitish Kumar to form the government, Laloo told the media that the governor had ''gagged democracy'' by ignoring his party's claim to form the government with the support of 161 members.

The RJD chief, who had gone to New Delhi yesterday to seek the support of 23 Congress legislators and other smaller parties, claimed that state Congress unit president Sadanand Singh had conveyed to the governor his party's support to the RJD. So did senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee from Delhi.

Sources told rediff.com that the governor's invitation to Nitish came half an hour before Sadanand Singh reached the Raj Bhavan to inform Pande of the Congress support to the RJD.

Laloo said he had also appealed to all political parties to ''resist such high-handedness'' of the governor and protest ''such an undemocratic stand''.

Meanwhile, a large number of RJD supporters, including some senior leaders, have virtually cordoned off the roads leading to the Raj Bhavan.

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