Sushil Kumar Modi dares Lalu Prasad Yadav to return 'gifted' estates

A day after the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) claimed that the 13-acre land gifted to party President Lalu Prasad Yadav's son Tej Pratap Yadav, when he was three, had been returned, senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday dared the veteran leader to return all properties received as gifts from politicians, businessmen and even BPL card holders.

"The 13-acre land was gifted to Tej Pratap in March 1992 but cancellation of the land transfer was done 15 months later. Did Lalu not know that late Brij Bihari Prasad had gifted the property," Modi said, while addressing a news conference at state BJP headquarters in Patna.

Modi questioned why Lalu had not returned the properties gifted by Raghunath Jha, Kanti Singh, Lalan Choudhary, Hridayanand Choudhary, Prabhunath Yadav and Subhash Yadav. "Lalan Choudhary is a BPL cardholder. Why wasn't his gift returned? Or even that of Hridayanand, a fourth grade railway employee?" he said.

Over the last three months, Modi has charged the RJD's first family of amassing over Rs 2,000 crore through dubious deals. From the soil-cum-mall scam to Tej Pratap getting land when he was three, Modi claims that the Yadav family has acquired over 125 properties in the last 12 years. The RJD, however, has denied all charges accusing Modi of making false allegations."We are not unemployed like Modi. The people of Bihar have given us a mandate for development that keeps us busy," Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, deputy CM and Lalu's younger son, said.