Enforcement Directorate officials questioned Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad for nearly 10 hours here on Monday in connection with a railway land-for-jobs investigation, the development coming a day after an NDA government was formed in Bihar.

The questioning of the RJD chief at the ED office in Patna, by sleuths who had arrived from Delhi, began shortly after 11am and ended around 9pm. ED sources said he had been asked about 50 questions.

Lalu’s family, party and supporters bristled at the long questioning given that Patna was facing a cold spell and that the veteran politician was 76, a diabetic, suffered from various other ailments including heart problems, and had undergone a kidney transplant in December 2022.

The RJD chief did not talk to reporters after stepping out of the ED office. He went home with his eldest daughter and Rajya Sabha member Misa Bharti.

The central agency has summoned Lalu’s younger son and former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav for questioning on Tuesday.

Misa and her Singapore-based sister, Rohini Acharya, accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP of harassing Lalu in keeping with their alleged politics of vendetta against Opposition leaders across the country.

In the morning, Misa and several senior party leaders had accompanied the RJD chief to the ED office. They had waited outside as he went in, answering a summons from the central agency.

A large number of party supporters gathered on the road outside the ED office, chanting pro-Lalu slogans and throwing traffic out of gear.

Misa and the other RJD leaders later shifted to the premises of a temple opposite the ED office to wait for Lalu.

“Everybody can see how things have developed. The government changed yesterday and the central agencies started coming today,” Misa told reporters.

“He is unwell. He has undergone a kidney transplant and suffers from several diseases. Above all, there is his age (to consider). He has problems getting up and sitting down. He cannot eat on his own: we have to feed him.”

Misa appealed to the ED to consider Lalu’s health and let him go, saying she was certain they did not have so many questions that they would have to hold him for such long hours.

In the afternoon, she was allowed to enter the office once to hand over Lalu’s medicines.

Misa alleged: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP are not confident of winning the coming Lok Sabha elections, so they are harassing Opposition leaders.

“Whenever they want, the central agencies send summons or greeting cards, be it Lalu Prasad, Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s family, or leaders in Maharashtra and south India.”

The land-for-jobs scam allegedly occurred between 2004 and 2009 when Lalu was railway minister in Manmohan Singh’s first government. Lalu stands accused of helping a large number of people from Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana to secure railway Group D jobs illegally in exchange for money and land.

These posts had not been advertised for recruitment.

The CBI registered an FIR on May 18, 2022, and the ED later entered the picture to probe a money-laundering angle. The two central agencies have conducted several raids on Lalu, his family and his associates and questioned several of them.