“You give me land and I will do your work,” this was RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s mantra using which he allegedly amassed assets and became the biggest zamindar (landlord) of Bihar, said deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi while speaking at an event here on Thursday, during which his book titled Lalu Leela, which provides details of the assets owned by Lalu and his family and the modus operandi used in amassing the property, was released.

The event was organised on the birth anniversary of socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan under whose tutelage several Bihar leaders, including Lalu Prasad, Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi, learnt the ropes of politics.

A galaxy of BJP leaders such as Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Radha Mohan Singh, Giriraj Singh, Ram Kripal Yadav, party national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain, party state unit president Nityanand Rai and some of Sushil Modi’s cabinet colleagues in Bihar, including Nand Kishore Yadav and JDU leader and state rural development department minister Shravan Kumar, attended the event.

On the modus operandi adopted by Lalu’s family to accumulate property, Sushil Modi said the family was the biggest landlord of Bihar with 141 plots, 30 flats and about half-a-dozen houses.

The deputy chief minister was also thankful to JDU national president Nitish Kumar, who had walked out of the Grand Alliance on corruption issues in July last year and had formed a government with support of the BJP.

Sushil Modi said the NDA would make corruption a major issue in the coming elections.

Ravi Shankar Prasad stated no one could deny Lalu’s ability to become a mass leader after coming from such a humble background but he used his popularity to benefit his family in the garb of social justice. Radha Mohan Singh termed Modi’s book as a true tribute to Jayaprakash Narayan stating that the late leader always stood against corruption and the deputy CM had shown the same spirit by exposing the assets of Lalu’s family.

Giriraj Singh broke away from the serious tone of the book release event and suggested that Sushil Modi should have consulted Ram Kripal Yadav and Nawal Kishore Yadav while writing the book as the duo would have given more insights on how Lalu operated.

Union minister Ram Kripal was Lalu’s confidant before he switched sides and joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 elections and won the Pataliputra seat. He was made a junior Union minister. Nawal too was RJD MLC before joining the BJP.

After attending the book release, Sushil Modi presented a copy of it to Nitish Kumar.