The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav responded on Twitter, after a special CBI court on Saturday sentenced him to 3.5 years in jail and fined him Rs.5 lakh in a case of fodder scam.

Lalu Yadav said, “Rather than practising BJP’s Simple Rule – “Follow us or We will Fix you”. I will die happily fixing myself for Social justice, harmony & equality”.

Rather than practising BJP’s Simple Rule – “Follow us or We will Fix you”. I will die happily fixing myself for Social justice, harmony & equality.

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— Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) January 6, 2018

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief was likely to get three to seven years’ punishment, as per reports and had he got a three year sentence, the process to get bail would’ve been easy. However, now the leader would have to approach the higher court to get the bail.

Minutes after the verdict, Lalu’s son, Tejashwi said he would be approaching the High Court.

“The judiciary performed its duty. We will go to the High Court after studying the sentence and apply for a bail,” he said.

The RJD leader also hit out at the BJP for conspiring against his father and called it a political witch-hunting.

All the accused including Lalu, who is lodged in the Birsa Munda jail in Ranchi, appeared before Justice Shivpal Singh of the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court via video conferencing.

While the arguments of Lalu along with four other convicts were heard on Friday, the arguments on the quantum of punishment for the six remaining convicts were completed on Saturday.

For the first time in this case, the hearing was conducted through a video-conferencing facility.

The verdict comes as major for Lalu, who on Friday, had moved an application before the court on health grounds and sought minimum punishment in the case.

In a plea filed in the court, Lalu’s lawyer has pleaded to the court have mercy on his client who is a heart patient and also has diabetes.

The plea further said that the Birsa Munda jail doesn’t have clean drinking water which could be harmful to Lalu’s health. Moreover, there’s no provision for any medical care in case of an emergency, the court was told.

Therefore, the RJD chief should be let off with minimum punishment.

The request comes after Lalu told the court that he felt very cold in the jail to which the judge asked him to play the ‘tabla’.

The fodder scam relates to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs. 89.27 lakh from Deoghar treasury 21 years ago.

Earlier, the court had pronounced a total of 17 accused including guilty while six including former Bihar Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra were let off in the case.

Meanwhile, top party leaders on Saturday attended RJD’s “emergency meeting” under to plan the way forward in the absence of Lalu.