A Beer Brewery Got Lalu And Sons Real Estate Worth Crores, Says BJP

Patna: Lalu Yadav, mainstay of Bihar politics, recently defended the business interests of his two sons, who are both ministers, challenging, "Should they die in poverty?" However, the smudges of questionable dealings are quickly ratcheting up, with new allegations today of the ministers illicitly acquiring - and then concealing - their ownership of multiple plots of pricey real estate, given to them in exchange for helping an entrepreneur set up a beer brewery just outside Patna.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi says that in 2003, an entrepreneur named Amit Katyal set up a beer brewery while Lalu's wife, Rabri Devi was Chief Minister. Over the years, he said, all the shares in a company created by Mr Katyal have been transferred to Lalu's family, making it the owners of valuable assets including real estate. He did not share more details, daring Lalu, as he is known, to offer a list instead if he has nothing to hide.

"Lalu Prasad got cent per cent shares of the company transferred" to his relatives, Mr Modi said. He claimed that Lalu's sons were made directors of Mr Katyal's firm and though they quit their posts before becoming ministers, they did not succumb their stake. Tejashwi Yadav told NDTV that his stake, like his brother's, was declared in the list of assets they are required to provide as ministers.

The BJP leader says the firm's current directors are entirely from Lalu's family and include his daughters, Chanda and Ragini.

Last week, Mr Modi released documents that outed Tejashwi and Tej Pratap Yadav, along with their mother as the owners of a two-acre plot on the outskirts of Patna that is being developed as the state's biggest mall -a project worth nearly 500 crores. Lalu, 69, told reporters days later that half the project is, indeed, controlled by his family. Which provoked the opposition to ask why his sons had not declared the land or their holding in the mall in the list of assets required of them as ministers -a question to which Lalu did not offer a response. In that case, too, Mr Modi shared documents to claim that Lalu's family used a careful trail of proxy owners to acquire control of the land.