BJP president Amit Shah and three other senior party leaders were trapped inside a lift of the state guesthouse here for around 40 minutes, an incident which triggered a blame game between the saffron party and the Nitish Kumar government which attributed it to overloading.
“The lift got stuck between the two floors and its metal doors also got jammed around 11.30 PM last night. There was no lift operator around or person capable of handling such an emergency. The mobile phones of those trapped inside were also out of reach as they were in a closed box,” BJP state president Mangal Pandey said.
The incident happened when Shah was going from the ground floor of the state guesthouse to the first floor along with party in-charge for Bihar Bhupendra Yadav, Secretary Nagendra and General Secretary Saudan Singh and a couple of security personnel.
He was ultimately rescued by CRPF personnel who were present there as part of his Z+ security cover. They had to tear apart steel doors of the elevator to pull out Shah and other leaders trapped inside. Shah left for New Delhi by flight this morning. Slamming the state government for the incident, senior BJP leader CP Thakur said “conspiracy” cannot be ruled out.