Was it a 'political investment' that he made to secure a berth in the Union Government or was it just a goodwill gesture to his leader to have gifted away his house at Gopalganj?
PATNA: Was it a 'political investment' that he made to secure a berth in the Union Government or was it just a goodwill gesture to his leader to have gifted away his house at Gopalganj to RJD boss and Railway minister Lalu Prasad's sons?
Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries Raghunath Jha would want us to believe that it was the latter.
Whatever be the case, the giving away of the house, valued at Rs 8.75 lakh, to Lalu's sons Tej Pratap and Tejaswi way back in 2005 has kicked up a controversy with Bihar's ruling JD(U) charging the Railway minister with acquiring properties in his name and those of his kins by offering party tickets and jobs.
"Tej Pratap and Tejaswi are like my own sons. My rival in the party that rules Bihar are just trying to sully my image," says Jha, who became a Union minister earlier this year, nearly three years after the deed of the gift was executed.
"They (Lalu's sons) are like my own sons who have sincerely and faithfully served the donor," says the deed though ironically the two families never had a chance to live together under one roof and thus enable Jha to enjoy their service.
Blaming the political rivals for making 'baseless charges', a livid Jha said "I would have become a minister way back in 2004 had the outcome of the counting of votes in 464 polling stations not been withheld at the behest of the NDA which was then in power at the Centre."
Letting in on the circumstances in which he gifted the house he had built in Gopalganj after getting elected from
there on Samata Party ticket in 1999, Jha said after his victory from Bettiah as RJD candidate in 2004, he wanted to sell the house.
When Lalu, a native of Gopalganj, came to know of his plan, he requested Jha to sell it to him.
"Given our old association, I said I will not sell it to him and gifted it to his sons. Am I not entitled to gift something I own to anybody," he shot back.
Shivanand Tiwari, Rajya Sabha member and JD(U) national spokesman, however, did not buy Jha's logic that he gave the house as a present to Lalu's sons voluntarily.
"It is common knowledge that Lalu has acquired properties at his village, in Patna and Ranchi by means fair and foul. He has got properties registered in his own name or in the names of his relatives by making promises of party tickets, ministerial berths and even jobs. Jha's case cannot be different," Tiwari said.
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