Patna: In a deft move to woo the voters in Bihar's Saran parliamentary constituency represented by him, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad has donated 69 buses to 63 academic institutions from his MPLAD funds apparently for convenience of the students'.
The buses have been donated to schools and colleges in Prasad's lok sabha seat so that the students could conveniently commute from their places to the schools/colleges and back, Prasad's aide, Bhola Prasad Yadav told PTI on Monday.
Prasad's aide said that his leader pooled together annual funds of his MPLAD over past several years and bought 69 buses for the selected academic institutions, with each 32-seater bus costing Rs 13 lakh.
On the maintenance and servicing of the buses, Yadav said that it was for the beneficiary institutions to arrange funds for the purpose.
However, according to his detractors in NDA, "Prasad may have sought to woo the students and their families by donating buses to academic institutions to reap electoral dividends in the next general elections."
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said, "the people understand his ploys (log sab hoshiyari samajhte hai)."
Prasad had proposed to provide bikes to the youth in a bid to lure them to vote for his party in the assembly polls, he said.
Kumar said that the RJD leader may have intended to counter the NDA government's 'bicycle scheme' for boys and girls students to empower women and promote awareness among the young students about environment and the results of which were there for all to see.
PTI
First Published: Monday, September 17, 2012, 20:24