By IANS
Patna : A Bihar bureaucrat who penned Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s biography was suspended by the state government for his alleged violation of government orders and irregularities.
Harivansh Narayan, a joint secretary in the department of animal and fish resources in the state, was suspended after the government initiated departmental proceedings against him, said officials in the personnel and administrative reforms department.
Narayan was charged with not attending several meetings of the 20-point programme implementation committee and flouting quota norms and other government rules in allocating 12 PDS (Public Distribution Scheme) shops in 1996 and 17 in 1997 during the tenure of Lalu Prasad as Bihar chief minister.
He was also charged with giving maternity benefits to people with fictitious names.
“A formal notification of his suspension was issued late Wednesday,” officials said Thursday.
During the 2005 assembly elections, the Election Commission had prevented him from working as a returning officer after objections from some political parties.
Narayan had written Lalu Prasad’s Hindi biography – “Mitti Ke Gaurav” – in the 1990s. A portion of the biography was included in a Class 8 textbook by the Bihar Secondary School Board during the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) rule.
The book described Lalu Prasad as a mass leader and an ‘anmol ratan’ (priceless jewel) who has been a “prime source of inspiration for the socially backward and underprivileged classes of Bihar”.