Venkaiah Naidu at the meeting in Dhanbad. Picture by Gautam Dey

Dhanbad/Ranchi, Sept. 28: Crying foul over a government helicopter flying out BJP national president M. Venkaiah Naidu today to Dhanbad, the Opposition demanded that the BJP reimburse the state the cost of the flight.

Describing the flight as a ?gross misuse of power?, RJD state president Yogendra Baitha asked the government to spell out the circumstances under which rural development minister Chandra Mohan Prasad escorted Naidu to Dhanbad. ?Even Prasad has been busy in BJP?s state working committee meeting at Dhanbad,? said Baitha, ?and yet they have been merrily using state government planes and helicopters?.

In fact Prasad was already in Dhanbad in connection with the party meeting. He flew back to the state capital just before the service flight carrying Naidu from New Delhi landed at Birsa Munda Airport. He received Naidu and took off almost immediately thereafter in the three-seater helicopter for Dhanbad.

The rural development minister, however, defended the flight. ?I had got the plane booked in my name for I had gone to Dhanbad on official visit. Naidu merely took a lift in the plane,? he said. The minister, however, failed to specify the government work for which he took the helicopter to Dhanbad. Sources in Dhanbad said all through the day Prasad remained busy with his party programme.

It is not known who will foot the bills for Naidu?s flying visit to Dhanbad. State government?s civil aviation secretary A.C. Ranjan was not available for comment.

Jharkhand civil aviation minister Madhav Lal Singh said: ?I am now busy with a public meeting in a remote village of my Assembly constituency. I know that Chandra Mohan Prasad has taken the chopper to Dhanbad. Venkaiah Naidu too is accompanying him. But, I will be able to tell you more on the matter only when I return to Ranchi. Let me return to Ranchi tomorrow and find out the facts.?

Laloo haunts BJP

Stung possibly by Laloo Yadav?s statement that CBI would inquire into irregularities committed in the union rural development ministry during Naidu?s tenure, the BJP president devoted most of his energy in denouncing the railway minister.

Naidu was addressing party workers in Dhanbad and justified his ?Laloo bashing? by claiming that the former Bihar chief minister was planning to rule Jharkhand by proxy.

The fact that as many as 80 businessmen from Patna had chosen to shift to various destinations in Jharkhand, he pointed out, indicated which was the better-governed state.

Naidu, however, failed to enthuse workers who openly complained that by criticising Laloo Yadav from every platform, party leaders were investing him with a larger than lifesize stature and betraying their own panic. Belligerent workers forced the leaders to include ?campaign against corruption? in the party?s political agenda and criticised ministers and a corrupt bureaucracy for failing to deliver on promises.

Factions within the BJP were also unhappy because Naidu stopped short of declaring the party?s chief ministerial nominee after the Assembly election. He did reiterate though that there would be no change of leader before the election and affirmed the BJP?s commitment to have a tribal chief minister.

The NDA, he said, would roll out a red carpet if Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan decided to join hands. The BJP, he said, had done its homework and would launch an agitation against the railway move to transport cows on trains.