Bihar Ministers charged with turning their bungalows into banquet halls

There seems to be no end to RJD’s woes. A day after party president Lalu Prasad was exposed talking to the incarcerated former MP Mohammad Shahabuddin, two RJD ministers in the Nitish Cabinet were in the eye of storm for turning their bungalows into banquet halls.

The two ministers - Abdul Ghafoor and Shiv Chandra Ram - have been charged with entering into a deal with an event management company which organised marriage function on the sprawling campus of huge ministerial bungalows allotted to them by the State legislature secretariat.

While Ghafoor, the Minority Affairs Minister, stays at Taylor Road, Shiv Chandra Ram, the Art and Culture minister, has been allotted bungalow on Strand Road.

After the gaffe was exposed by a local TV channel, the main Opposition party BJP submitted a memorandum to Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind and urged him to ask Nitish to sack the two ministers from the RJD quota.

“Abdul Ghafoor and Shiv Chandra Ram have turned their Government bungalows into banquet halls. We have been told that they have tied up with event management companies and charge hefty fee in lieu of letting out parts of their sprawling bungalows for marriage functions,” said Bihar’s former Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi after meeting Governor.

“We have demanded that Nitish Kumar not only sack the two ministers but recover such ‘earnings’ from their salaries,” said Modi.

As per rules of the State’s Building Construction Department, which looks after the maintenance and upkeep of the Government bungalows, commercial exploitation of ministerial or any official bungalow is strictly prohibited.

“I never charge a single paise from anyone if ever I lease out the land on my bungalow. It’s purely as a goodwill gesture with an aim to help those people from my constituency who need it for marriage or any other purpose,” clarified Shiv Chandra Ram, the Bihar Minister.