No grouse over seating plan during Prakash Parv: Lalu

RJD national president Lalu Prasad on Sunday said he has no complaint over not being allotted a seat on the dais during a Prakash Parv event here, though a top leader of his party and the Congress party had expressed displeasure over the matter.

“Why should I have any grievance? It was a spectacular arrangement for the 350th Prakash Parv celebration that brought good name to Bihar from across the globe,” he told reporters here.

Prasad said there are people who would always point out drawbacks and shortcomings in any such mega programme.

“People always perform puja by sitting on the floor. Is puja performed by sitting on the chair?... And that was the ‘Guru ka darbar’,” he said.

RJD national vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh and Bihar Congress chief and education minister Ashok Choudhary, both constituents of the grand alliance government in Bihar, had on Friday resented Prasad not being given a seat on the dais alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

Former Union minister Lalu Prasad and his two minister-sons - Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav - sat on the floor in the VIP enclosure, with others.

Kumar, Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ram Vilas Paswan and Governor Ram Nath Kovind shared the dais with the Prime Minister at the concluding function of the 350th Prakash Parv to celebrate the birth anniversary of 10th Guru Govind Singh on January 5.

“This (Lalu Prasad not accommodated on the dais) has not gone down well with the people. Lalu Prasad was made to sit on the ground. Everybody praised Nitish Kumar for making grand arrangements. Was RJD not the part of the management for preparations and arrangements made for the prakash parva celebrations?” Raghuvansh Prasad Singh had said expressing his anger a day after the function. 

Asked about Singh’s comment, Prasad said it was the leader’s “personal opinion” on a particular issue.

Choudhary, the Bihar Congress chief, said, “It is Lalu Prasad’s magnanimity and his reply is a big riposte to the petty politics being played by the opposition parties”.

Asked on Sakshi Maharaj’s controversial remark on population boom, the RJD chief said the BJP leader is “always involved in communalising society” and he should be arrested under Goonda Act and sent to jail.

“Sakshi Maharaj is a very bad person. He is not a saint.He is a vagabond person. He should be arrested under Goonda Act and sent to jail...He always tries to communalise society,” Prasad said.

“Those with four wives and 40 children are responsible for the population boom in the country. Hindus are not responsible for the increase in population,” Maharaj, BJP MP from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, had said while addressing a “saint sammelan” in Meerut on January 6.

In reply to a query whether he also demands change in the date for presentation of aUnion budget keeping in mind the elections in five states, RJD leader said, “People are demanding a change in the date for presentation of the budget. But they will not change it.”