An arrest warrant was issued against RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav a day after he told a rally in Bihar’s Muslim-dominated Kishanganj that had he been Home Minister, he would have “run a roller” over BJP’s Varun Gandhi for his hate speech against Muslims.

Kishanganj SP Ramnarain Singh told reporters: “We examined the CD of Lalu Prasad’s speech and found it provocative.” An FIR was lodged against him at the Town police station under sections of the IPC and Representation of the People Act. Singh said a warrant was in place to arrest the RJD chief. The offence is bailable.

Meanwhile, Lalu Prasad today claimed he meant “kanoon ka roller (roller of the law)” in his speech. LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan came to his defence, calling it a “political speech”. “Laluji meant he would have taken strict action against Varun. He said it in other words. It is now up to the Election Commission to interpret it.”

But Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar slammed Lalu: “He wants political mileage by making such inflammatory statements. If somebody (Varun) said something wrong, the law of the land was there to take care of it. It was not the job of Lalu Prasad to make such a damaging public speech in a sensitive area like Kishanganj.”

While Bihar BJP leader Kiran Ghai demanded that the NSA be invoked against Lalu Prasad for “fomenting communal frenzy”, senior party leader Arun Jaitley demanded that the Prime Minister either remove him from the Union Cabinet or “own responsibility” for the statement against Gandhi.