Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi on Wednesday urged Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to set up an all-party committee to probe the "soil purchase scam" in which, he alleged, RJD chief Lalu Prasad's minister-son Tej Pratap Yadav was involved.
"Since the RJD supremo is open to probe by any agency, the chief minister should set up an all-party committee to probe the alleged 'soil purchase scam' without any delay," Sushil said in a statement.
The BJP leader had on Monday accused Tej Pratap, the environment and forest minister, of awarding a contract of Rs 90 lakh to a company for earth filling work in Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park without tender and demanded his ouster from the cabinet.
While Tej Pratap has threatened to file a defamation case against Sushil, his father Lalu Prasad said his family was ready to face investigation by any agency.
"Sushil Modi has made false allegation against me and my family members. I am ready for any probe," the RJD chief said at his 10 Circular Road residence today. "If at all there was a payment made, there must be some record with the state exchequer. Can Sushil Modi prove that the soil used in earth filling at Patna zoo is taken out from the construction site?"
On the zoo authorities' contention that the soil purchased for the work was not bought from an under-construction mall, which according to Sushil is coming up on land owned by the RJD chief's family, the BJP leader asked for testing of the soil from both the spots to ascertain whether it was the same or not.
"The Patna zoo director can speak more on the issue," Lalu said. "However, by seeing the colour of the soil one can easily make out the difference between the soil at Patna zoo and soil from the construction site. People are raising questions over the soil purchase but nobody is talking about the cow dung which I have been giving to the zoo for free for the past one-and-half years for free," said Lalu.
Sushil demanded that all documents related to the alleged scam should be sealed as those papers might be tampered with by the accused.
The authorities of Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park have still not cleared the air on how the contract of soil dumping, which they claim was worth Rs 40 lakh, was given without inviting a tender.
Finance department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say that work of over Rs 1 lakh has to be given by tender. Second, it has been pointed out that the annual budget of the park is around Rs 40 lakh, so the money for the over Rs 90 lakh project to build pathways must have come from the corporate fund of Rs 350 crore the Supreme Court had ordered the state government to make while hearing a case on ecological violations made during the construction of the project.
The fund which is managed by a committee headed by the chief secretary is for conservation and promoting environment. Making a pathway in a biological park does not amount to conservation of environment, it has been pointed out.
As the BJP demanded a probe, JDU spokesperson and MLC Neeraj Kumar said: "It is very important for everyone to maintain transparency in public life. A probe must take place. Laluji has already come forward and said he is ready for any probe, so the government will think over it."
