PTI
 
New Delhi, Dec 27: The going was not all that smooth for Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who has received fulsome praise from various quarters for his turnaround of the railways, as he addressed a group of students from the elite Harvard and Wharton Business Schools of the US today.

The minister, who called himself 'Guruji', explained to the students in Hindi how he had broken the myth of the western model that an enterprise which proves to be a "liability" should be privatised and its employees given the golden handshake. His speech was translated.

But the students from various countries, who wore tilaks and garlands, questioned the sustainability of his model.

Kunal Singh, an Indian student at Harvard, told reporters, "We asked him if his model was sustainable. What happens when he exits as railway minister?" Singh also asked Lalu why he could not turn around Bihar in the 15-year rule of his RJD in that state, while he changed the railways within 30 months. "Lalu said Bihar needed an outside push. It had too many problems, while the railways had a lot of potential. It is like an empire."

Lalu referred to the students as 'achcha bachcha log' (good kids) and exhorted them to be honest and hard-working during the hour-long lecture that was not open to the press.

"I told the 'cream of the society' (the students) that I did not follow what the think-tanks and experts say in the West about loss-making ventures," he told reporters after his interaction with over 100 students from the business schools at the Rail Auditorium here.