Uproar in House over RJD’s reference to RSS on women’s day

Bihar Legislative Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes on Tuesday after leader of opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav intervened in support of RJD MLA Anita Devi’s remark quoting RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement in a magazine that ”women should be housewives and men should be breadwinners”.

Bihar Legislative Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes on Tuesday after leader of opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav intervened in support of RJD MLA Anita Devi’s remark quoting RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement in a magazine that ”women should be housewives and men should be breadwinners”.

Women legislators demonstrates outside the Bihar Assembly on the occasion of Women’s Day on Tuesday. (Santosh Kumar/Ht Photo)

Tejashwi got up to speak in an otherwise all-women show in the assembly on the International Women’s Day after BJP legislators protested Devi’s remarks and demanded this be removed from the proceedings.

Deputy chief minister Renu Devi said she was herself from RSS. “Women work equally with men in the RSS. I am from Sevika Samiti and we strive to serve the society,” she said, even as BJP and RJD members started shouting at each other. The presiding officer, Jyoti Devi, had a tough time telling members to maintain decorum and not name any individual who is not part of the House.

As Tejaswhi Yadav got up to speak, the woman legislators from the treasury benches tried to prevent him. “I have not said anything unparliamentary, nor has Anita Devi. She just quoted a magazine article with a statement attributed to the RSS chief. My mother was the first woman CM of Bihar when I was a child, but I still recall the derisive remarks made against her. But she proved herself,” he said.

It all happened during the debate on the agriculture department’s budgetary demand of ₹3585.31 crore, which was later passed with voice vote without Opposition.

Agriculture minister Amarendra Pratap Singh said Bihar had made significant progress not only in agriculture production and productivity, but also in agriculture education, with three universities in the field and five Krishi Kamran awards from the Centre .