The wheels of politics remain well oiled in Bihar. The free bicycles given by the Nitish Kumar government to schoolgirls are now staring at a likely competition from the buses his arch rival Lalu Prasad Yadav is set to donate to schools and colleges in his constituency.
Mr Yadav, the RJD chief and a former Bihar chief minister, has offered to donate 57 buses for schools and colleges in his Lok Sabha constituency of Chapra from his MPLAD funds, which had been getting piled up for the past three years to reach `15 crores and sitting idle. Mr Yadav is also reportedly asking the three other RJD MPs to do the same in their constituencies.
The RJD seems to be undeterred by the rejection Bihar’s electorate meted out to its promise of free motorcycles for school and college students during the 2010 Assembly polls, in which the party was routed by the JD(U)-BJP alliance headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar.
Mr Yadav’s donation of buses for students is being seen as the RJD’s efforts to take on the JD(U)-BJP government’s popular scheme of free bicycles for schoolgirls, often hailed as a revolutionary socio-economic machine spurring women’s education and empowerment despite the corruption the scheme has gathered.
The 57 buses Mr Yadav wishes to donate are going to be of the Mahindra make, each having 32 seats and costing `13 lakhs. The institutions that would benefit have been reportedly selected by Mr Yadav himself. There will also be a maintenance fund to be set up at these institutions with modest fees collected from the students.
“Students in Bihar still face great difficulties in reaching their schools and colleges. I am using `15 crore from my MPLAD funds as a beginning to end these difficulties,” said Yadav, whose representatives formally submitted his bus donation offer to the district magistrate of Saran, Vinay Kumar, on Saturday. “Everyone knows what is happening to Nitish Kumar’s bicycles in the villages,” added Mr Yadav.