Tejashwi's 'hi-tech', luxury bus owned by a poor, BPL card holder: Minister

A hi-tech, luxury Volvo bus that Lalu Prasad's younger son Tejashwi Yadav has acquired apparently for his upcoming state-wide tour is registered in the name of a person holding a below-poverty-line card, a minister of Bihar's JD(U)-led NDA government alleged on Saturday.

State Information and Public Relations Minister Neeraj Kumar took potshot at former Bihar chief minister's political heir, saying Tejashwi Yadav is aptly following his father's footstep, making "fraudulent" investment in hi-tech buses, in place of plots of land.

Kumar, also a senior spokesperson of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U), told a press conference here that documents available with the Transport Department show that the luxury Volvo bus was, oddly, registered in the name of a BPL card holder.

He also claimed the mobile number mentioned as that of the owner, however, belongs to a former RJD MLA.

"Tejashwi Yadav is following the footsteps of his father. Only, he has made the matter hi-tech. He has invested in a hi-tech bus instead of plots of land which Lalu used to acquire through similar fraudulent means," Kumar alleged.

"A BPL card holder OBC Madan Pal, who belongs to Bakhtiyarpur in rural Patna, has been made the scapegoat for the legal wrangles that may arise from this fraudulent transaction.

"He has been named as owner of the bus, just like many hand-to-mouth people used to be shown as having gifted prime properties to Lalu Prasad, the JD(U) leader alleged.

"Interestingly, the mobile number shown as that of the owner, however, is registered in the name of former RJD MLA Aniruddh Yadav and he still uses the same.

"We wonder if it is yet another benami transaction through which the party leadership has extracted the price for giving the ex-legislator a party ticket," the minister said.

Tejashwi Yadav is expected to kick-start his state-wide tour in his recently acquired Volvo bus.

"If Tejashwi Yadav and the RJD have a clear conscience, they must come out with an explanation. Else their silence shall deemed to be an admission of guilt," Kumar said.

According to RJD sources, the bus would be used by Tejashwi for his "berozgari yatra" (unemployment tour) of the state which would commence on February 23 here after a party rally where the RJD would virtually sound the bugle for the assembly polls due later around October this year.

Bihar BJP spokesman Nikhil Anand also charged Tejashwi with failure to "usher in a new political culture within the RJD".

"Enjoying luxuries sponsored through party leaders has been a part of the culture promoted by his father and Tejashwi has failed to change that. His berozgari yatra is nothing but an attempt to alleviate his own anxieties of becoming berozgar (getting into political wilderness) since it has become obvious that he is capable of leading neither the RJD nor the five-party Grand Alliance it leads," Anand said.

Tejashwi Yadav, however, evaded a direct reply when asked about the allegations levelled by the ruling dispensation.

"The minister has cited government records. We all know how well maintained government records are in Bihar. Don't you remember they had shown Sunny Leonne as having topped an exam," he retorted.

In February last year, the Public Health Engineering Department had egg on its face when its website showed the name of the Bollywood actress as the top scorer in an exam conducted for recruiting junior engineers.