Monsoon session: Washout continues on Day 3, Tejashwi blasts BJP

‘A charge sheet against me was filed in 2017. I do not know what has happened to it. God knows it. When I was taking oath as deputy CM last year despite a charge sheet pending against me, they (read BJP) did not raise objection. Now, they are saying why did you take oath. They should have stopped me then’

Members of the Opposition BJP in Bihar on Wednesday smashed a chair inside the assembly and tossed shreds of paper in the air while standing in the well, prompting the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till the next day.

Bihar deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav talks to reporters in Patna on Wednesday. (Santosh Kumar/HT)

This was the third day of the monsoon session of the state legislature. Proceedings had to be similarly adjourned on the first two days amid unruly scenes.

On Wednesday, proceedings began at 11 am on a stormy note, with Leader of the Opposition Vijay Kumar Sinha asserting that “the Opposition has the right to raise issues concerning the people, which include corruption”.

The allusion was to a CBI charge sheet against deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav, the demand of whose resignation had rocked the House the day before.

Sinha was allowed to speak for a few minutes before Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary went ahead with the Question Hour.

About 30 minutes later, Sinha was again on his feet, this time alleging that “Opposition members are not being allowed to ask supplementary questions while those from the ruling side are getting the opportunity”.

The Speaker chose to ignore the complaint and move ahead with the Question Hour, even as Opposition members led by Sinha trooped into the well, raising slogans.

The ministers concerned, including Yadav, who sat beside chief minister Nitish Kumar, gave replies to the questions raised by other members of the assembly.

BJP members began tearing pieces of paper and throwing the shreds in the air. They also picked up chairs meant for the reporting staff and tried to upturn their table, in a repeat of the previous day’s pandemonium.

Finally, when a chair was smashed to the ground by the Opposition members, the Speaker decided he has had enough. “Your conduct is deplorable. Don’t force the Chair to take action,” screamed the Speaker, announcing that the House shall now meet on Thursday.

Speaking to reporters later outside the assembly, the deputy chief minister blasted the BJP, asking why it had not objected to his reappointment as deputy CM last year despite a charge sheet filed against him in 2017.

“A charge sheet against me was filed in 2017. I do not know what has happened to it. God knows it. When I was taking oath as deputy CM last year despite a charge sheet pending against me, they (read BJP) did not raise objection. Now, they are saying why did you take oath. They should have stopped me then,” Yadav said.

Inside the House earlier in the day, leader of the Opposition, Vijay Kumar Sinha, asked chief minister Nitish Kumar, who was present in the house, as to why he had not taken the resignation of his deputy so far.

“It is highly condemnable that my mike was switched off when I was speaking. The Opposition has the right to raise issues concerning people , which include corruption,” Sinha later told reporters outside the House.

BJP members were also agitated that a short notice question related to the collapse of the bridge over river Ganaga being built to link Khagaria and Sultanganj ( in Bhagalpur district) on June 4 did not come up for government reply during the time allotted for such questions. The question was put by Sinha.

Tejashwi on bridge collapse

In his interaction with reporters outside the House, the deputy CM said the bridge collapse matter is with the court but the government had already initiated action in the matter.

“It was me who had raised the matter when a portion of the same bridge had caved in April 2022. Later, when we came to power, we shifted out the engineer and changed the MD of Bihar Rajya Pul Nirman Nigam,” Yadav said.

He also sought to know from BJP what action it had taken when the bridge had collapsed for the first time in April 2022, an apparent reference to the fact that BJP’s Nitin Nabin was the minister of road construction then.