PATNA: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) admitted on Friday that former Union ministers Raghunath Jha and Kanti Singh gave property to party chief Lalu Prasad’s family, but denied that it was quid pro quo.The statement came a day after senior BJP member Sushil Kumar Modi accused Lalu of acquiring properties from Jha and Singh in exchange for ministerial berths in the UPA-I government. On Friday, Singh not only accepted that she and her family gave 30 katthas of land (approx. 41,400 sq ft) at Danapur, Patna district, on lease to Lalu’s wife and former Bihar CM Rabri Devi in 2006, but also said they registered it in Rabri’s name in 2010.Modi had alleged that Singh and her family leased out the land to Rabri for 99 years on a monthly rent of Rs 1,250 for a Union Cabinet berth. “Laluji’s family had to vacate the CM’s official residence after RJD lost the 2005 assembly elections. Laluji had around 100 cows and he had to shift them to another place. So, I leased out my plot at Danapur as a temporary arrangement and later sold it to Rabri in 2010 for Rs 1 crore as my family needed money after I lost the 2009 elections,” Singh added.Modi countered Singh’s claims and said the land she registered in Rabri’s name was different from the one she had leased out to her. “The land Kanti Singh is talking about is a 62-decimal (roughly 27,000 sqft) plot adjacent to the 95-decimal (approx. 41,400 sq ft) leased out to Rabri. Kanti Singh sold this particular piece of land to Lalu’s two sons — Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap — for Rs 60.36 lakh in 2010,” Modi alleged.Jha’s son Ajit Kumar Jha also admitted that his father had gifted a plot in Gopalganj to Tejashwi and Tej Pratap in 2005, but emphasised that it was a “personal” transaction. “Zameen mera, hum usko kisko gift karein, usse kisiko kya matlab hai (The land is ours. How does it concern anyone else if we gift it to someone)?” Ajit said. He added that his father’s ministerial stint under UPA-I wasn’t his first. “My father was state (Bihar) minister of various important departments... between 1980-83 and 1990-95. Besides, he was an MLA from 1972 to 1998 and became MP in 1999 and 2009. He was in the prime of his political career even before he gifted the land. Hence, the allegation of seeking favours is baseless,” Ajit added.Addressing newsmen, RJD functionary Jagdanand Singh said: “Lalu is our leader. He fights for social justice. Hence, other leaders try to financially empower him in order to make him strong enough to lead the movement.”