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Now, travel scam in Bihar

Soroor Ahmed in Patna

The Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is in a soup. A Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) MLA has alleged that nine BJP MLAs withdrew large sums of money by producing fake travel allowance bills.

Mahendra Singh has submitted a memorandum to Governor Suraj Bhan seeking action against the MLAs. He has attached PNR numbers and railways reservation requisition slips used by the MLAs.

Singh, who represents the Bagodar assembly segment, has alleged that the nine MLAs, all from south Bihar, undertook a train journey to Patna on Janaury 15 this year, but produced fake bills claiming they had travelled by road.

The nine have been identified as: Ramji Lal Sharda (Hatia), Jawahar Lal Banra (Chaibasa), Gaur Harijan (Chandan Kyari), Laxman Gilua (Chakradharpur), Laxman Swarnkar (Gande), Ram Chandra Baitha (Kanke), Shankar Chaudhary (Ramgarh), Sadhanu Bhagat (Lohardagga) and Deo Dayal (Hazaribagh).

Mahendra Singh claimed that no steps were taken even after the speaker of the state assembly was apprised of a similar malpractice by some other MLAs in 1997.

He has now requested the governor to institute an inquiry committee to probe the racket.

However, the governor is not likely to act on the complaint, for the simple reason that he is due to handover charge to the new governor Vinod Pandey on November 23.

BJP spokesperson, Kiran Ghai, when contacted by newsmen said she had no knowledge of racket or the involvement of her party's MLAs. "We will probe this matter to ascertain the truth," she said.

Save one, none of the nine MLAs, whose names figure in the list, were today available for comment. Deo Dayal, BJP MLA from Hazaribagh, denied that he was involved in any such racket." When prodded further he said: ''Mahendra Singh has a habit of raising such issues. He wants to capitalise on it in the coming assembly elections.''

Singh, however, is confident that he has enough proof against the nine MLAs. "If I am found guilty the governor is free to initiate legal action against me," he said.

Singh's allegations, meanwhile, have put the state leadership in a fix. The party had suspended its MLA Dhruv Bhagat after his name surfaced in the animal husbandry scam. What action the party will take against the nine MLAs remains to be seen.

As all these MLAs come from south Bihar, where the party won half of the 43 assembly seats, it's a politically sensitive issue.

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