Monsoon session to begin today, likely to be eventful

The five-day Monsoon session of the state legislature, commencing Monday, is expected to be stormy as leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and left parties on Sunday resolved to rake up many contentious issues, including price rise, alleged mismanagement of Covid-19 pandemic, perennial shortage of vaccine, unemployment and blatant assault on unarmed legislators by police during the budget session

The five-day Monsoon session of the state legislature, commencing Monday, is expected to be stormy as leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and left parties on Sunday resolved to rake up many contentious issues, including price rise, alleged mismanagement of Covid-19 pandemic, perennial shortage of vaccine, unemployment and blatant assault on unarmed legislators by police during the budget session.

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Leaders of opposition parties gathered at the residence of Opposition leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav Sunday evening and unanimously decided to corner the government over the abovementioned issues. Senior RJD leader Alok Mehta, state Congress chief Madan Mohan Jha and Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Ajit Sharma, CPI (ML) legislator Mahboob Alam and state secretary Kunal attended the meeting.

After the meeting, Yadav said the opposition will not be content with anything less than an apology from chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar over the assault on legislators by the police during the last budget session on March 23 this year. “We all want the CM’s reply on the incident on the opening day of the session and an unconditional apology,” said the opposition leader.

The Opposition leaders have already disapproved of Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha’s reluctance to act against the police, who mercilessly thrashed legislators in an unprecedented chaos. Police were called inside the Assembly to assist the marshals in evicting unruly opposition members, who physically tried to stop the Speaker from presiding over the meeting, which saw the approval of the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill during the Monsoon session.

Congress MLC Prem Chandra Mishra said action against only two constables for beating up over 25-30 MLAs, including women legislators, was unjustified. “The Speaker did not take cognizance of the video clips submitted to him by the Opposition for perusal,” alleged Mishra, saying that the Congress legislature party will meet separately to chalk out its floor strategy in the Assembly and the legislative council.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has already written to the Speaker, saying that Opposition legislators were scared to enter the house, owing to the thrashing incident.

“Unlike the last session, the Opposition leaders will try doing away with disrupting the business of the House to raise issues of public concerns. However, it all depends on the approach of the government during the session. We will be compelled to stall proceedings if the ruling benches refuse to cooperate,” said Mehta, adding that there were a lot of issues that could keep the government restive throughout the session.

The Opposition leaders said they were prepared to expose the government on the issues of rising prices of fuel and essential commodities, alleged scam in state teachers’ eligibility test, state of the economy and health care, unemployment post-pandemic etc

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