The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Lavish praise for Lalu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 17, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Lavish praise for Lalu

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUPATI. Sept. 16. It was pro-Lalu sentiment all through the 90-minute programme organised at Tirupati by the South Central Railways in connection with the maiden visit of the Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, to Tirupati after taking over the Ministry. Also present was his wife and the Bihar Chief Minister, Rabri Devi.

Speakers showered their choicest epithets on him. The Tirupati Congress MP and former Union Minister, Chintha Mohan, topped the list said he saw a conspiracy by vested interests to block the growth of leaders like Mayawati and Lalu Prasad in public life. "Laluji is the champion of the cause of BCs and the poor," he said. Mohan sought to trace Lalu's `ancestral links' with Tirupati, citing how the Yadava rulers had built various mandapams, including the demolished Golla Mandapam, Ranga Mandapam in the Tirumala Hills. He said next to Pandit Nehru and Sonia Gandhi's meetings, such an enthusiastic crowd had been seen only at Lalu Prasad's meeting. This showed he was becoming the "darling of the masses," he said.

Lalu Prasad's deputy in the ministry, R. Velu, said he must be proud to come to Tirupati, "which was once ruled by yadavs."

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