A Patna court has ordered Bihar police to register an FIR against Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, Rajya Sabha member Misa Bharti, state Congress president Madan Mohan Jha and two others in connection with a cash-for-poll-ticket case.

The court of chief judicial magistrate (CJM) Vijay Kishore Singh issued the order after hearing a case in which lawyer and Congress leader Sanjeev Kumar Singh has accused the five leaders of swindling him out of Rs 5 crore on the pretext of giving him a ticket to contest elections.

Congress spokesperson Rajesh Rathore and former party leader Sadanand Singh’s son Subhanand Mukesh are the other two accused. Sanjeev has also accused Tejashwi of threatening to get him killed when he demanded his money back.

“These leaders promised to give me a ticket to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Bhagalpur and took Rs 5 crore from me. However, they did not give me the ticket,” Sanjeev told reporters.

“When I demanded my money back, they promised to field me in the Assembly elections from Gopalpur (in Bhagalpur district) and my brother from Rupauli (in Purnea district), but did not keep their word again. When I told them to return my money, Tejashwi threatened to get me eliminated,” Sanjeev added.

The RJD and the Congress are in an alliance in Bihar.

The CJM’s order and papers related to the case were sent to Patna senior superintendent of police Upendra Kumar Sharma, who forwarded them to Kotwali police station on September 16 for further action.

Kotwali station house officer Sunil Kumar Singh told this newspaper that he was yet to receive the papers for the FIR.

Asked about the case and the directions for an FIR, Tejashwi’s aide Sanjay Yadav told The Telegraph: “There is no need for us to react to nonsensical and baseless allegations. We do not know anything about the case or the person who has filed it. If the court has ordered an FIR, so be it.”

The other accused leaders did not respond to phone calls. However, some Congressmen claimed that Sanjeev had ceased to be a member of the party a year ago.

“The man in question was expelled from the party during the Assembly elections last year after he put up posters declaring himself as the chief ministerial candidate of the Grand Alliance. He seems to be mentally unstable. The government agencies must probe how he got Rs 5 crore, which is a huge amount,” Congress leader Rajesh Rathore told this newspaper.