Blame game begins after ruckus in Bihar assembly over Special Armed Police Bill

Parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said the dignity of the chair and the House was undermined, the opposition was upset over the lack of debate on the bill

Opposition lawmakers allegedly held state assembly speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha hostage in his chamber for three hours amid sloganeering and a siege of the House on the penultimate day of the budget session in protest against the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill on Tuesday. They were upset over a lack of debate. Anti-riot police were rushed into the House to clear it for the proceedings to resume.

Security personnel removing Grand Alliance legislators who were demonstrating outside Bihar Assembly during Budget Session in Patna, Bihar, on Tuesday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

As minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav began his speech, the opposition walked out, and the bill was passed.

Sinha said it seemed everything was targeted at him. “I was confined to my chamber with all gates closed... I have taken a serious view of it. The entire House was turned into a battlefield, something that never happened in the past,” he said.

Parliamentary affairs minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said the dignity of the chair and the House was undermined. “The entire exercise seemed pre-planned, and it was unfortunate.”

Rashtriya Janata Dal lawmaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhury hit back at the government for getting the bill passed for special powers to the police under protection. “I have never witnessed police entering the House and forcibly evicting and beating legislators to clear the House for one-sided passage of a bill. There cannot be anything more heinous in parliamentary democracy. All the rules of legislative business were put on the backburner.”

Choudhary said the government should have been sent the bill to the select committee for its scrutiny. “The government wants to forcibly get things done, which is not acceptable in a democracy. Unbridled powers to an already maligned police are a design to silence all those who speak against the government.”

Congress leader Ajeet Sharma questioned how the police were allowed to enter House and beat legislators. “The police had powers earlier also and there was no need for a new bill... The police have powers to act against anti-social elements, but they cannot be allowed to enter anyone’s house.”

Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) general secretary Deepankar Bhattacharya called the developments in the assembly “complete murder of democracy and Constitution”. “This is what has happened in Uttar Pradesh also. It is all a blueprint of the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] to make an autocratic state. But Bihar will never accept it.” Bhattacharya added what the police could be used for was demonstrated both inside the House as well as outside.

Political analyst NK Choudhary said the visuals from the House clearly showed a collapse of the democracy, but the initiation certainly was from the Opposition as they held Sinha captive and did not allow him to conduct House proceedings. “But there was an overreaction to it. There should have an attempt to find a political solution to the impasse. The Opposition also needed to behave responsibly...”