In poll time, everybody loves a good flood

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New Delhi, September 2:: A union Cabinet minister underlining how he is arranging for relief for his flood-ravaged state, Central ministries getting their PSUs to dole out funds, state governments jumping into the fray with their own relief measures, and Congress and BJP leaders writing to the Speaker urging him to ask all MPs to donate for flood relief: call it competitive welfare or election-time politics, but Bihar is on the mind of everyone who matters.

Leading the pack is Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has announced assistance worth Rs 90 crore from the Railway Minister’s Welfare and Relief Fund (RMWRF) — a fund essentially meant to provide relief to Railway employees in distress.

Besides, 14 lakh Railway employees have been told to donate a day's salary, with Lalu doing the same, while all Railway PSUs are contributing. Lalu has also missed no opportunity to talk about the Rs 1 crore he had won on Kya Aap Paanchvin Pass Se Tez Hain that he is giving away. Meanwhile, the East Central Railways (ECR) has already issued advertisements highlighting Lalu’s “largesse”.

Asked recently why create a separate fund and not contribute to the Bihar Chief Minister’s Fund, Lalu said: “We are setting up this fund for our own satisfaction. We want to make sure this money reaches the needy.”

Accusing Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of “criminal negligence”, Lalu also claims that it was his intervention with the Prime Minister that got the floods recognised as a national disaster.

Lalu is further learnt to have asked party colleague and Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to come up with ways to contribute. Among the options Singh is learnt to be exploring are assisting NGOs or providing relief material through CAPART, an agency under his ministry.

With Lalu setting such ‘high standards’, others have been trying to catch up. Petroleum Minister Murli Deora was the next to get the PSUs under his ministry to provide relief material worth Rs 5 crore.

Now, Congress MP from Dausa Sachin Pilot has written to Speaker Somnath Chatterjee urging him to consider asking all MPs to donate money from their MPLAD funds — offering Rs 10 lakh from own — while BJP president Rajnath Singh has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to allow MPs to use their MPLAD funds outside their constituencies.