Ask Laloo and he says it\\'s just an 'image problem\\'.

(From Indian Express)

Laloo's raillery and repartee of yesteryear have today given way to bluff and bluster. More so when you confront him with facts. Over two hours he spent with AJIT KUMAR JHA of The Sunday Express, he called up at least a dozen bureaucrats in Patna to put up a show that he could hold people accountable. Ask him any uncomfortable question and he throws it back saying: ''It's an image problem, not a reality.'' Ask him why a young man killed himself because the govt didn't pay his father for 10 years and Laloo says the young man was ''mad.'' Question him on how a woman who has not been paid for years is pulling along and he says look at her picture, she ''looks so robust.'' You claim to represent the voice of the poor, you swear by social justice, yet people haven't been paid for years. A 22-year-old sets himself on fire because your government had not paid his father. Do you feel any guilt?No, not at all. You people don't even get your facts correct. This young man was crazy, he just returned from Kanke (Ranchi's mental hospital). His brother is a DSP in the police. He told me that his brother died of disease, not burns. Look, it is not a case of bloodless murder by us as painted by The Indian Express. Why have his father Paritosh Bhattacharya and 40,000 other employees of the Bihar State government not been paid their dues for almost a decade?Ever since I was a student at Patna's Miller School, our teachers called corporations rightly as white elephants. The 40,000 employees that you describe as unpaid for a decade, including Paritosh Bhattacharya, are corporation employees, not pure state government employees. All state government employees in Bihar are paid their salaries regularly. All the 50 corporations in Bihar are independent legal entities. Previous chairmen kept recruiting employees. This was a burden my government had to shoulder. In 1996-97, some employees went to Patna High Court on the grounds of not getting their salaries. The court ordered either revive the corporations in three months time or failing that simply liquidate them. Since you failed to revive them, why did you not liquidate them?If we sell the corporations, their land ...