Tej Pratap Yadav’s attempts to dial CM over bungalow turn futile

PATNA: RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s elder son and former health minister Tej Pratap Yadav on Saturday said he had been trying to speak to CM Nitish Kumar for allotment of a separate bungalow for him for the last two days, but the employees at the CM house were not connecting his calls to the CM.

“I made a telephone call to the CM house on Friday and requested for an appointment with the CM so that I could convey my request for a bungalow to him. However, there was no positive response from the officials concerned. Even on Saturday, the officials did not connect my calls to the CM,” Tej Pratap told reporters on Saturday.

Tej Pratap, who has filed a petition before a family court in Patna seeking divorce from wife Aishwarya Rai, no longer wants to stay with his mother and former CM Rabri Devi at her 10, Circular Road residence.

Around a month ago, Tej Pratap had filed a petition in the assembly secretariat seeking allotment of house number 2M on Strand Road to him. However, the assembly secretariat expressed its inability to allot the house to him on the ground that it is a central pool quarter under the command of the building construction department (BCD).

Tej Pratap then sent his request to the BCD. However, the department turned down his request on the ground that Tej Pratap is currently an MLA and allotment of quarter for an MLA is done by the assembly secretariat.

As the department refused to allot him a quarter, Tej Pratap approached the BCD minister Maheshwar Hazari and made a fresh request to him. The minister, however, didn’t oblige him saying he had limited role in allotment of government quarters, which is done by the officials concerned.

“Since Tej Pratap, despite being an MLA, wants a bigger bungalow of the central pool either on Strand Road or Hardinge Road, we are unable to give him a house. As he has been seeking a quarter of the central pool, we have suggested him to approach the BCD for allotment,” an assembly official, who is familiar with the house allotment procedures, told TOI on Saturday.

He said the assembly secretariat had earlier allotted a flat on Daroga Prasad Rai Path to Tej Pratap after the fall of the Grand Alliance government in July last year. “The former minister didn’t occupy the flat for several months. He kept pressing for a bigger house of the central pool on Hardinge Road. Later, that flat was allotted to another MLA, the assembly officials told TOI.