Bhopal: First time BJP MLA Pritam Lodhi, who had recently stirred a controversy by threatening a young IPS officer over phone and then making it viral on social media, has once again kicked up a storm by paying tribute to a dread Chambal dacoit, slain in the police encounter nearly two decades ago, and calling him a ‘friend through happiness and sorrow’ at a public function in Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri district.
Addressing a function at Pichhore on Sunday, organized to commemorate the birth anniversary of Queen Ahalyabai Holkar, the lawmaker of the ruling party described the Chambal bandit, Rambabu Gadariya, as a victim of atrocities by the feudal lords on the poor.
The feudal lords harassed him, leading him to flee to the jungle and turn a bandit, he said.
While garlanding a photograph of the dacoit featured by the side of the image of Ahilyabai at the function, Lodhi recounted his ‘association’ with him in the jungle as well as in the jail.
“We were companions in happiness and sorrow”, he said.
The BJP MLA recalled how he led a protest of 5,000 people over the alleged atrocities against a woman and said that “People then said that a goon was helping a dacoit’.
“But are dacoits not human beings”, he asked the gathering of Pal-Baghel community present on the occasion.
Taking a vow to protect the community in any kind of adversity, he said that he stood with the bandit when his hand weighed barely 2.5 kg but now ‘My hand weighs 250 kg which will always protect the Pal-Baghel community’.
Lodhi has been accused in a number of criminal cases.
Rambabu Gadariya was a dreaded dacoit operating in the Chambal valley spreading in three states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
He had more than 100 cases of murder, dacoity, and kidnapping pending against him and had a bounty of Rs 15 lakh on his head.
He ran the dacoity gang along with his brother Dayaram Gadariya.
He was killed in a police encounter in a jungle in Shivpuri district in 2007.
Lodhi had recently landed in controversy when he threatened Shivpuri district superintendent of police Ayush Jakhar over interrogation of his son in an accident case in the area in April.
He was later summoned by the state BJP leadership to explain his conduct.
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