Patna, May 29: It’s a luscious gift from the Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar, to India’s President, Prime minister, UPA chairman Sonia Gandhi and other VIPs — some 400 packets of “shahi” litchis.
“This is a ‘decent’ minister’s way of bribing a country’s VIPs — through their stomach. How can one be critical of anyone after eating sugary litchis — a Muzaffarpur and Vaishali speciality — the sweet taste of which enslaved even the Mauryan king Chandragupta and his guru Chanakya,” remarked a witty leader close to the CM.
Interestingly, the list of recipients also includes Nitish’s once bosom buddy-turned-arch-rival Union railway minister Lalu Prasad.
In the list of 400 VIPs there are the Vice-President Bairon Singh Shekhawat, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Union finance minister P. Chidambaram.
Plucked fresh from selected orchards in Muzaffarpur and Vaishali, the bunches of crimson fruits were treated with sulphur and cooled in refrigerators before being loaded in refrigerated containers and dispatched to New Delhi on Sunday from Muzaffarpur. “District administration supervised the pre-cooling and packaging, which was carried out at the Muzaffarpur-based fruit processing unit belonging to R.K. Kedia,” the Bihar Industries Association president, K.P.S. Kesri, told The Telegraph.
Muzaffarpur district magistrate Vinay Kumar, who personally supervised the packaging said: “The consignment will be offloaded at Bihar Bhavan and handed over to the state resident commissioner, C.K. Mishra. The resident commissioner will subsequently distribute the packets of 250 litchis each to the VVIPs.” The chief minister’s office hopes that the consignment will be delivered at Bihar Bhavan today or latest by tomorrow morning.
Similar consignments of Digha mangoes will follow sometimes in June, the CMO said.
The CM initiated this convention of gifting Bihar fruits to VIPs in 2006. The grapevines have it that previously Kalam, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh have liked and profusely thanked the CM for his gifts.
Incidentally, except Lalu Prasad and RJD ministers at New Delhi, few UPA stalwarts have openly criticised the NDA chief minister in Bihar so far. “Perhaps, the litchis have not mesmerised Lalu or his colleagues as they have tasted the fruits before,” commented a wag.
But to the embarrassment of Lalu Prasad, his ministerial colleagues P. Chidambaram and T.R. Balu showered the Bihar CM with the munificent praises. Besides, Kalam and Somnath Chatterjee, too, praised Nitish Kumar, which was recorded in the government report card presented on the occasion of his year completion in office.
“Ho sakta hai ki ye sab shahi lichi ka kamal ho (May be it is the charismatic spell of the shahi litchis),” remarked the ruling Janata Dal (U) general secretary, Shivanand Tiwary with smile.
