RANCHI: Rebuffing his plea for leniency, a special CBI court here sentenced RJD boss Lalu Prasad to three and a half years in jail in a fodderscam related case on Saturday and ordered him to pay Rs 10 lakh in fines, a setback which should keep the former Bihar chief minister consigned to the sidelines of electoral politics for a longer period and clear the way for the ascension of his younger son, Tejashwi Yadav , to the helm of the party.Lalu was disqualified from contesting polls for 11 years after he was sentenced for five years in another case related to the 21-year-old fodder scam. His appeal against the first conviction is pending in the high court, with his camp hoping for a favourable outcome.However, the latest blow means that the RJD boss will not be able to enter the electoral arena even if the high court strikes down his original conviction or reduces the sentence to less than two years. The law bars those sentenced for two years or more from contesting elections or holding a public office after he has served the sentence.Lalu had pleaded with the CBI judge, Shiv Pal Singh, to use a “cool mind” while deciding on the quantum of punishment. The judge, who read out his order through video-conferencing, also slapped a cumulative fine of Rs 10 lakh, but said that he recommended that the convicts be shifted to the open jail at Hazaribagh where they can stay with their families.“All of you are old and should stay with your families and also tend the cattle there since you have good experience in fodder and cattle medicines,” said the judge. Three retired IAS officers — Phoolchand Singh, Mahesh Prasad and Beck Julius — have been awarded three years and six months in jail under various sections of IPC along with a fine of Rs 5 lakh each and another three years six months under the PC Act with fine of Rs 5 lakh each.Apart from awarding a 3.5-year jail term each to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and three retired IAS officers in a fodder scam-related case, the court also sentenced another government official, Subir Kumar Bhattacharya, to three years and six months in jail under IPC with a fine of Rs 5 lakh and an additional three years and six months’ term under the PC Act along with a fine of Rs 5 lakh.The fresh legal trouble for Lalu triggered off another battle of barbs between him and his opponents, BJP and JD(U), with the RJD boss casting himself as a victim of BJP who has been targeted because of his espousal of the cause of social justice, shorthand for OBC background. His supporters have interpreted the verdict through the prism of caste bias, referring to the acquittal of former CM Jagannath Mishra.Importantly, among the politicians who were convicted, it is the former JD(U) MP Jagdish Sharma, an upper caste Bhumihar , who along with an officer of the animal husbandry department Dr Krishna Kumar who was handed the maximum punishment. They were sentenced for seven years and ordered to pay a fine of Rs 10 lakh each. Jagannath Mishra, Lalu’s predecessor, was convicted along with Lalu in the first fodder scam-related case.One of Lalu’s lawyers, Anant Kumar said if Lalu had received less than three years, he could have got provisional bail from the trial court itself but now he will have to move the HC. Judge Singh handed down the sentence to politicians last and in doing so, the announcement of Lalu and his RJD colleague, former MP R K Rana were clubbed together.The judge said both of them were found guilty under 120B, 420 and other sections of IPC for which they were awarded three years and six months in jail along with a fine of Rs 5 lakh each. The judge pronounced them guilty also under the Prevention of Corruption Act for which they were awarded another 3.5 year in jail with an additional fine of Rs 5 lakh each.Counsels for both CBI and Lalu said that his two sentences would run concurrently. “Cases where sentences are to run separately have been clearly mentioned in the judgement, but in the case of Lalu Prasad the court has ordered that the sentences would run concurrently”, said Lalu’s counsel Prabhat Kumar, adding that the politician would move the HC to appeal the reverse.