NAMEPLATES OF MINISTERS GONE
Former RJD and Congress ministers will vacate their bungalows for NDA ministers. Nameplates from some of these bungalows were removed on Thursday.
PATNA: Former ministers from RJD and Congress in the erstwhile Grand Alliance government in Bihar will have to vacate their sprawling bungalows sooner to make way for new ministers in the NDA-II government.
On Thursday, nameplates from bungalows of some such leaders, including former finance minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui, were removed.
But there was possibility of RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s younger son and former deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad retaining his 5, Desh Ratna Marg, bungalow, should he be elected as leader of opposition, which is equivalent to the rank of a Cabinet minister.
But Prasad’s elder son and former health minister Tej Pratap would have to vacate his 3, Desh Ratna Marg, bungalow.
As ministers in the last 20 months, both Tejashwi and Tej Pratap used their bungalows for running their respective camp offices while preferring to stay with their parents at 10, Circular Road, the bungalow allotted to Rabri Devi as former Bihar CM. The RJD first family has been living in this bungalow for the last 11 years after Rabri had to vacate the adjacent CM’s residence, 1 Aney Marg, following her party’s poll debacle in 2005.
Later in the evening, the government issued orders withdrawing official vehicles of all former ministers of the RJD and Congress.
Altogether 15 RJD-Congres ministers would now have to vacate their bungalows in the next three months as per the norms of the Building Construction Department, which is the custodian of the ministerial bungalows.