Rajkishore Keshari

Patna, Jan. 11: Bipin Rai, the personal assistant to slain BJP legislator Rajkishore Keshari, came into the limelight a few months before the Assembly elections last year though he had been associated with the Purnea leader for about five years.

Rai’s name figured in an article published in Quisling, a local journal edited by journalist Navlesh Pathak, in which Keshari had been accused of sexually assaulting school principal Rupam Pathak.

Rupam had named Keshari and Rai as accused in her FIR lodged with the K. Haat police station in Purnea district in April last year. The article was published around the same time.

On January 4 this year, Rupam stabbed to death Keshari at his ancestral home in Purnea and later told the police she had actually come looking for Rai.

Navlesh has been arrested on charges of conspiracy and abetment to crime.

Keshari, a four-term MLA from Purnea Sadar Assembly constituency, appointed Rai, a resident of Madhubani Tola, as his personal assistant after the 2005 state polls.

“Bipin Rai has been associated with the party for about a decade but he worked hard to ensure the victory of Keshari in the 2005 elections. Keshari subsequently appointed him as his personal assistant,” said an office-bearer of the party’s Purnea unit.

Rai, 30, unsuccessfully contested the elections for the post of the district unit president in 2010 in spite of having the blessings of the MLA.

The son of a retired chartered accountant, Rai comes from a well-to-do family of Purnea town. A close associate of his said Rai wielded considerable clout in the region and even used to allot work under the MLA local area fund. “He was Keshari’s most trusted lieutenant,” the aide said.

Sources said it was Rai who had introduced Rupam to the BJP leader in 2006. Rai came in contact with Rupam when she decided to set up a school at Sipahi Tola, adjacent to the MLA’s ancestral house. Rai, local sources said, had extended financial support to Rupam when she distanced herself from her in-laws and decided to start a public school of her own.

It was Rai again who persuaded Keshari to give his consent to inaugurate the school started by Rupam, a postgraduate in Hindi with a BEd degree from Manipur.

“Keshari announced he would donate about Rs 2 lakh from his MLA fund at the annual day function of Rupam’s school in 2007,” recalled Rai’s associate.

He, however, said the MLA had removed Rai as his assistant after the sexual assault controversy erupted.

“Keshari was shocked after his name was dragged into the controversy. Though Bipin was removed before the 2010 Assembly elections, he kept visiting the MLA. After all, he is a party worker and the MLA cannot stop him,” said another associate of the slain leader.

This associate said Rai was seen in Purnea on the day Keshari was murdered, but he went into hiding soon after.

Purnea superintendent of police Nayyar Hasnain Khan said there was no question of taking Rai into custody as the chargesheet in the case related to alleged sexual exploitation of Rupam had been submitted in the court.