Patna, Aug. 20: Hardly any chief minister is safe against his barbs.
When he was a minister in the Lalu-Rabri regime, Ramai Ram was known for his frequent utterances against Lalu Prasad. In the JD(U) since 2009, Ram, one of the mascots of Mahadalits in Nitish Kumar’s ministry, is inclined to repeat his feat.
Ram found a part of his ministerial bungalow “occupied by strangers and his privacy threatened”. It happened after Patna High Court handed over the land’s ownership to a local resident, Drigomnehswar, who had won a legal battle and got the possession of a part of the land on which Ram’s official residence is built. As a result, Ram is forced to use the house’s backdoor to go out as the main gate has been taken over by Drigomnehswar.
On Tuesday, the minister of revenue and land reforms accused Nitish of not paying heed to his repeated demands for providing an alternative accommodation. Ram said: “Being a minister, I feel humiliated to use the backdoor at my own house. I have told this to Nitish but he hardly heard the matter. He asked me to speak to the chief secretary but nothing has happened so far.”
When The Telegraph visited the sprawling bungalow at 31 Kranti Marg-Hardinge Road, half of it was fenced with bamboos and iron wire. “I do not have any problem with the court’s order but the government should have paid attention before allotting me a bungalow on the disputed land. I was in Muzaffarpur on August 16 when a building construction department official told me that half of the bungalow would be fenced following the court order. This is not the way to treat a minister. Now, there is no privacy and threat to my family members as well,” said Ram.
Building construction department minister Damodar Rawat said: “We are looking into this matter very seriously as he is our cabinet colleague and we are not ignoring him. The file has moved ahead and within a day or two, he will be allotted a new bungalow.”
Drigomnehswar’s elder brother Gobardhan Pujari said: “I have no issue with the minister and have got possession after the court’s order. Our fight was against the government that took our land, which belonged to my great-grandfather Jugal Pujari, without any compensation.”
