Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday took a rickshaw to reach a movie hall to watch Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire to "relate with the common man".
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday took a rickshaw to reach a movie hall to watch Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire to "relate with the common man".
With no hooting of sirens, Kumar set out for the movie hall on a rickshaw from his One Anne Marg official residence followed by security personnel on bicyles and on foot. On his three-kilometre journey to the cinema hall where the film is running house full, Kumar waived to crowds gathered on both sides of the road.
JD(U) MLA Gayaneshwar Prasad (Gyanu) and BJP MLC Sanjay Jha followed him on another rickshaw to the cinema hall.
"I had heard a lot about the movie that has won eight Oscar awards depicting the life of the common man... I decided to take the mode of transport of common people to watch the movie... I wanted to relate with them," Kumar said when asked about his selection of rickshaw to travel to the cinema hall.
"During my student's days I used to ride rickshaws to reach cinema halls. Today's rickshaw ride has revived the old memories of my college days," he told reporters.
Asked if he was pursuing the Lalu Prasad brand of politics by travelling to the cinema hall on a tricycle, Kumar said, "Lalu has his own style of politics and I have my own...
I do not ape any one."
Meanwhile, RJD president and Railway minister Lalu Prasad termed Kumar's rickshaw ride as a "drama" and an attempt to imitate him.
"Kumar is trying to imitate me and is exploiting the poor people by riding on their back to reach the hall," Prasad told reporters at the Patna airport.
When Lalu Prasad became chief minister of Bihar in 1990 he and his cabinet colleagues had gone to the state secretariat on bicycles to cut the expenditure on fuel purchase. New bicycles were purchased for him and a host of ministers and officials to reach their offices. Kumar, however, denied that his rickshaw ride to the cinema hall was an election stunt.
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