PATNA: Can a minister use a government department under him in a project that financially benefits an enterprise he owns? Should two ministers be allowed to continue amid allegations that they kept their ownership of high-value landed assets a secret?
These are some of the questions thrown by Bihar’s Opposition BJP at the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government, targeting RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav and his two minister sons. What surfaced as the “soil purchase scam” has snowballed into allegations of wrongdoing by the Yadav family in acquisition of property in Patna.
Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi alleged that the authorities of Patna zoo spent `90 lakh in an “unnecessary project” in order to benefit the Yadav family.
Modi’s further charges that the RJD chief acquired the `30-crore plot illegally during his years as railway minister has made JD(U), which was RJD’s arch rival till 2015 Assembly polls, cringe. An embarrassed CM Nitish Kumar has maintained a cryptic silence.
Modi said, the authorities of Patna zoo, which is under Yadav’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav as forest and environment minister, awarded a `90-lakh contract to a firm for land-filling and pathway making work and that the firm bought soil from an under-construction mall site owned by a company having the RJD chief’s two minister-sons and his wife, former CM Rabri Devi, as directors. Modi said the contract was awarded without a bidding process.
The RJD chief rubbished the charges and claimed he had been supplying cow-dung from his cow shelter to the zoo free for 18 months.
But he is yet to counter Modi’s charges that the `30-crore plot on Patna’s outskirts, where a `500-crore mall is being built, belongs to the Yadavs and that it was illegally acquired.
While Lalu has fallen silent on the issue, Tej Pratap and RJD MLA Syed Abu Dojama, owner of the company building the mall, have threatened to sue Modi for defamation. Meanwhile, Bihar chief secretary AK Singh has sought documents about purchase of soil from the zoo. But BJP demands nothing less than Tej Pratap’s resignation.