India News | Tejashwi, Allies Deplore BJP MLAs' Conduct Inside Assembly, LoP Defends
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha on Wednesday defended the conduct of fellow BJP MLAs who smashed a chair and tossed shreds of paper inside the House, causing adjournment of proceedings for the day.
Patna, July 12 (PTI) Leader of the Opposition in Bihar Assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha on Wednesday defended the conduct of fellow BJP MLAs who smashed a chair and tossed shreds of paper inside the House, causing adjournment of proceedings for the day.
Sinha alleged “stepmotherly treatment” from the Chair, accusing it of “acting as an instrument of the government” and claimed that his “78 member-strong” party was being given less time than those with “just four five MLAs”.
“We have been putting up with all this. Today my mic was muted when I raised the issue of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar going soft on corruption, unlike in the past when he had forced many tainted ministers to resign”, alleged Sinha.
The allusion was to the fresh charge-sheet against Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav in the land for jobs scam pertaining to the tenure of his father and RJD president Lalu Prasad as the Railway Minister.
Yadav taunted the BJP, pointing out “this is the second time that a charge-sheet has been filed against me. The first one came in 2017. Only God knows what progress the case made in the last six years.
“The fact remains, the first charge-sheet was there against me when I took oath as the deputy chief minister last year. If the BJP is so sure charge-sheet is a big issue, why did it not protest when I was being sworn in”.
Nonetheless, Sinha maintained that he and his party men wanted to raise “many other issues, including the lathi charge on teachers' jobs aspirants and 'Kisan Salahkaars', and referring to the “Vidhan Sabha march” of the BJP slated for Thursday, declared “Bihar is the land of Jayaprakash Narayan. Tomorrow it will be witness to yet another mass movement against an insensitive regime”.
The march will be staged in protest against demands of job aspirants that include withdrawal of “no domicile” policy in recruitment, regularisation of non-commissioned teachers and direct appointment, without any competitive tests, for those who have cleared CTET and BTET.
In addition to the teachers' issues, the BJP seems poised to throw its weight behind the agitating ‘Kisan Salahkaars' (farm advisors) who have been demanding that they be treated on par with ‘jan sevaks' (public servants).
However, Yadav said, “the government had come prepared to reply to all issues that the opposition claims to be wanting to raise. But their conduct was unbecoming of members of the august House”.
Sinha, nonetheless, stood his ground and raked up the incident of two years ago when he was the Speaker and was kept hostage inside his chamber by MLAs of the RJD, then in opposition, until in an unprecedented measure police was called inside the Vidhan Sabha premises and unruly members were physically evicted.
“The committee that inquired into the incident had submitted a report (before RJD came to power). The report has not been tabled before the House. This is also a clear example of the Chair having become an instrument of the government”, alleged Sinha.
However, Shravan Kumar, a senior JD(U) leader and minister who has formerly held the parliamentary affairs portfolio, disapproved of the behaviour of Sinha “despite having once occupied the high office of Speaker”.
“First he egged on his fellow MLAs to troop into the well. Then he himself joined them. And his grouse was not with regard to any other MLA. He orchestrated the whole drama just because he himself wanted more time to speak”, claimed the minister.
State minister Tej Pratap Yadav, who is the deputy chief minister's elder brother, also deplored the conduct of BJP MLAs and demanded stern action against one of them whom he identified by name and claimed to have spotted picking up a chair and smashing it on the floor.
“This is yet another nail in the BJP's coffin which will lose the Lok Sabha polls of 2024 when Narendra Modi will have to give up the seat of power and make way for Mahagathbandhan”, he said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)