Lalu Prasad used railway saloon 369 times

Lalu Prasad, as a railway minister, used the railway saloons during journeys in his tenure unlike Mamata Banerjee who has so far not availed the facility.

Lalu had availed the saloon facility 369 times in five years, mostly during the journeys to his home state Bihar.

Besides using it more than a dozen times to travel to Patna from Delhi, Lalu also used the customised saloon for travelling to places like Puri, Jammu, Chhapra, Udaipur, Gorakhpur, Saharsa, Bhabua Road, Ajmer, Gaya, Ludhiana, Varanasi from the capital.

Known as 'MR Saloon', the specially manufactured coach consists of a drawing and dining room, a bed room, a fully equipped kitchen and another room for the PA to the minister.

The RJD supremo had used the saloon mostly to travel to places like Kanyakumari, Madgaon, Ernakulum, Sabarmati, Tinsukia and Salem between 2004 and 2009.

Lalu has also used the saloon to visit a number of pilgrim towns including Haridwar, Vindhyachal, Amritsar, Prashantinilayam, Tirupati and Puri.

The railway ministry provided the information about the frequent use of railway saloon by Lalu in response to an RTI application filed by Subhash Chandra Agarwal.

The details of Lalu's journeys by saloon provided by the ministry is for the period from May 2004 to June 15, 2008. Besides the railway minister, minister of state for railway and senior ministry officials are also entitled to use the saloon during their official visit.

According to the records, the former railway minister had visited metros like Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai — by saloon.

The RJD chief had also travelled to Bangalore by the coach although his saloon travel is maximum in Bihar and he has touched almost every nook and corner of the state between 2004 and 2009.

He has travelled to Ara, Sharasa, Chhapra, Samastipur, Araria, Hajipur, Motihari, Siwan, Sitamarhi, Darbhanga, Aurangabad, Mujaffarpur and Munger in the 'MR Saloon' during this period.

According to a senior Railway official, "Saloons are also available for tourists for exclusive use. One can book it after making a payment and the booking rate depends upon the distance of travel."