Lalu, the new Shah Jahan?

NALIN VERMA

Rabri Devi Patna, June 26: JD(U) state chief Lallan Singh may be comparing Lalu Prasad's love for his wife with that of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's for his wife Mumtaz, but all the barb did not deter the railway minister from flagging off a Phulwaria-Hajipur passenger train that would halt at Rabri Devi's ancestral village, Selarkala. "Lalu Prasad has built a spanking new railway halt at Selarkala, barely a kilometre from Phulwaria (the railway minister's village). The track would be remembered as the railway minister's version of the Taj Mahal," Singh added. It would be the first time that a train would halt in this tiny hamlet. "Ours was not a love marriage. Rabri Devi and I live as every Indian couple does," said the railway minister, when asked to explain why a train should halt only a kilometre away from Phulwaria. "It's not out of love for Rabri that I started a link between Phulwaria and Selarkala. It is my endeavour to link remote Indian villages through the Indian Railways." Rabri Devi, who was sitting by her husband's side at the ceremony, nodded in agreement. "Laluji is the greatest railway minister. The Selarkela halt is a gift to the people, rather than a personal gift," Rabri Devi said. The Phulwaria-Hajipur Passenger will start from Phulwaria and will pass through Selarkala, Siwan and Chapra before terminating in Hajipur. "I have allowed free passes for girl students. I hope that now the girls from remote areas would take the initiative to travel to institutions in other towns and villages," he added. Phulwaria and Selarkala in north Bihar's Gopalganj district were nondescript, low-lying villages that submerged easily in floodwater and were devoid of any civic facilities — before its two political stars emerged. The railway link is just another feather in the cap of the two villages that also got a metal road years ago, after Lalu Prasad became the Bihar chief minister in 1990.