Patna: After the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) demanded more land from the Bihar government for expanding its party office here, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar responded by asking whether he should bring land from the sky.
The RJD has demanded 14,000 sq ft more land for its state office from the Bihar government. The party's state president Jagdanand Singh has written a letter to the building construction department in this regard.
Responding to a question about RJD's demand at a programme in Patna, Nitish Kumar said: “All parties have got office. They only know what they are talking about. Ask them. In 2006, land was arranged for all the parties. Have these people ever given land to all recognised parties? We only gave the land. The land which was preferred at that time was given. Tell me now, should I bring land from the sky?”
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RJD says that it is the largest party in Bihar with the maximum number of MLAs and hence needs more land for expanding its office. Jagdanand Singh said in his letter that there are three big parties in Bihar and the offices of all three are on Virchand Patel Path. While the RJD has 75 MLAs, BJP has 74 and JDU 43 in the assembly. Yet the RJD has got less land for its office than the other two.
"JDU and BJP have expanded their respective state offices with public money,” Jagdanand Singh said. “We constructed our state office building by raising funds ourselves. In the month of March itself, we had written a letter to the building construction department for the expansion of the RJD state office. They took five months to reply.”
In his letter, Jagdanand Singh has sought land near the party office. The building construction department replied that the land adjacent to the RJD office comes in the High Court pool and hence cannot be made available. Jagdanand has pointed out that while the JDU state office is built on about 60,000 sq ft and the BJP's on over 50,000 sq ft, the RJD's state office is built on just 20,000 sq ft.
