Hard Habit to Break; Lalu Plays CM
Bhagalpur: July 1, 2007
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president and Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav may not be in power in Bihar anymore but he sure is acting like the virtual Chief Minister of the state as he urged people to tell him their troubles and promised to resolve their problems during his Sunday trip to Bhagalpur where he was present to inaugurate some railway projects.
Showing his concerns over the looming flood in Bihar, Yadav, in a reminiscent of his Chief Minister days in Bihar, ordered officials to prepare for any disaster and build shelters for the victims in Darbhanga, Madhubani, and Muzaffarpur.
"We did so many things for Bhagalpur but yet the people of Bhagalpur rejected RJD in the last Assembly elections," Yadav lamented asking the people to compare the 'developments' between the RJD rule and the NDA rule in Bihar.
"They said kidnapping was on an all-time high during the RJD rule in Bihar. Today, numbers tell a different story. Crime has reached a new height under the Nitish rule and there is a mass migration from the state with youths looking for jobs in other states.
The Railway Minister, who was also accompanied by other RJD leaders including Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav and Shakuni Chowdhary, appealed to the people to come to Patna on October 28 to make his maha-rally against the Nitish government a grand success.
Yadav also shrugged off the Saturday incident involving his brother-in-law Subhash Yadav who, demanding a seat in the first class air-conditioned coach in Patna-Delhi Rajdhani Express, created a scene at the Rajendra Nagar Terminal in Patna, saying the whole incident was much ado about nothing.
"It was a minor incident but media distorted the facts and made a mountain out of a molehill," Yadav said upon his return to Patna, he would look into the matter.
Earlier, taking a cue from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Yadav held a 'janata darbar' at his residence in Patna on Saturday.
In true Nitish-esque fashion, the RJD chief also heard the complaints of hundreds of his followers who stood in line for hours to get a fair hearing from their messiah.
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