Patna/New Delhi, April 29: The fight for Chhapra is far from over.

Even as the Election Commission ponders over what to do with the troublesome trio of Chhapra, Siwan and Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh, Laloo Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal has launched a counter-assault.

Police have registered two criminal cases against civil aviation minister and Chhapra’s sitting MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy, alleging intimidation and assault on party workers and damaging of voting machines.

The first case (No. 29/2004, filed at Amnaur police station on April 27), filed on a complaint by RJD election office in-charge Rajeev Singh, alleges that Rudy and his bodyguards abused and thrashed him, and snatched his gold chain and Rs 3,000 while he was going to booth number 151 to vote.

Addressing a news conference in Patna, RJD spokesperson Shivanand Tiwari said Singh had filed the complaint soon after polling got over on April 26. But as the station in-charge was out on election duty, the case could be registered only the next day.

The second case (No. 28/2004, filed in the same police station) relates to the complaint by the polling officer of booth number 168, Raghav Prasad. He has alleged that five persons entered the booth as he was closing it and damaged the electronic voting machine. He said in the report that some villagers informed him that the men were Rudy’s bodyguards.

In yet another written complaint against the minister, two RJD workers, Upendra Chouhan and Umesh Singh, have alleged that Rudy “misbehaved” with them.

“We were at booth number 169 to oversee polling. Seeing us there, Rudy, who came out after casting his vote, abused and slapped us,” they alleged. But the police, the duo said, refused to register a case.

Reacting to the allegations, Rudy said these cases were a mere “afterthought”. “Why should they come up with such cases now, three days after the polling, after we have gone to the Election Commission demanding countermanding of the entire polling?”

The poll panel doesn’t appear to be convinced by the evidence furnished by the BJP as proof of rigging in Chhapra. The commission has decided to send a team to the spot before taking any decision on the BJP’s demand for countermanding of polls or repolling.

A two-member team of the commission will visit Chhapra on Saturday to conduct a “detailed inquiry” into the allegations. The team of K.J. Rao and Ananth Kumar will spend two days in the constituency and interview political parties and candidates. It will also examine diaries of polling officers.