Mangaluru (The Hindu): B.A. Mohiuddin Bava, Mangaluru City North MLA, has landed in a controversy after a set of five notebooks bearing his photographs were distributed to 48,000 students in his constituency to mark his birthday.

The front cover of the notebook says it is a gift from Mr. Bava. The inside pages have photographs of the MLA’s visit to different schools and his interaction with students. The back cover has an advertisement of the Prestige Group, which is the partner in several real estate projects of Mr. Bava’s younger brother B.M. Farooq’s Fiza Group.

As per an advertisement published in a local newspaper, Mr. Bava spent ?52 lakh on disturbing the notebooks. An official from the Education Department said that a few days ago, they had given a list of schools and colleges in the constituency to the office of the MLA.

“We were called for a function at a school on Saturday, where the formal distribution of books was done. We distributed notebooks to 100 students of our school on Monday,” said a teacher from a government secondary school in Katipalla. Another teacher from a private school in Katipalla said as the children had already purchased books for the year, they were told to use these notebooks as rough books.

The BJP and the Democratic Youth Federation of India have objected to the incident alleging that it amounted to Mr. Bava “misusing his authority as a legislator to meet his political ends”. In a memorandum addressed to the Vidhana Sabha Speaker, BJP Mangaluru North Assembly block president Y. Bharath Shetty said Mr. Bava had misused schoolchildren for campaigning to retain his seat in the Assembly elections.

DYFI State president Muneer Katipalla said Mr. Bava had misused the staff of the Education Department for distribution of books. The expenditure of ?52 lakh for this exercise was questionable. A detailed investigation should be done, he said.

Mr. Bava could not be reached for comments.