The Bihar bandh called by the Opposition to protest against the alleged police assault on its MLAs while opposing a police bill in the Assembly on Tuesday disrupted life across the state on Friday as leaders and supporters took to the streets.
The Opposition MLAs had opposed the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill, 2021, which has now become an act after being passed by the bicameral state legislature and the approval of the governor, claiming it gave powers to the force to arrest and conduct searches without warrant or the presence of a magistrate.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal, CPI-ML, CPI, CPM, and Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) participated in Friday’s bandh and demanded chief minister Nitish Kumar’s apology on what they called an attack on democracy. They also sought the withdrawal of the three controversial farm laws being opposed by the farmers.
Several national highways were blocked in several of the 38 districts in the state. The protesters squatted on the roads, placed carts and vehicles as barricades, and burnt tyres to disrupt traffic for several hours. They also shouted slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nitish. In many districts the roads were blocked early in the morning.
National Highway 2, also known as the Grand Trunk Road, NH 28, 31, 57, 77, 80, 83, 110 and the Mahatma Gandhi Setu across the Ganga between Patna and Hajipur, and many state highways were blocked in various districts.
Trains were also stopped at various railway stations for some time as the bandh supporters squatted on the tracks and climbed onto the engines. They also took out marches waving party flags and shouting slogans.
RJD workers took out the “last procession” of the chief minister. Many of them got their heads tonsured to mark the occasion. RJD’s Mahua MLA Mukesh Raushan trampled over Nitish’s effigy. A similar procession was taken out in Nalanda, the native district of Nitish.
Water resources minister Sanjay Kumar Jha’s convoy got stuck in a jam caused by the bandh supporters at Bhagwanpur in Vaishali, while he was going to Muzaffarpur. The police extricated the vehicles with much difficulty.
The state capital also witnessed massive traffic snarls as the protesters blocked the main thoroughfares at different places. Shops and business establishments were closed for several hours in Patna and many other towns.
RJD leaders Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and his elder brother Tej Pratap Yadav took part in the bandh in Patna after participating in the funeral of their uncle Mahavir Rai, the elder brother of party chief Lalu Prasad. Rai passed away while undergoing treatment for various ailments at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna.
Tejashwi asked whether the MLAs had staged a protest in the House for the first time. He asserted that the protests were peaceful and well within the limits of the behaviour expected from the legislators.
“The socialist leaders sat on the Speaker’s chair and ran the House in 1974. Socialist leader Karpoori Thakur led a protest that disrupted the Assembly for three days in 1986. Nitish Kumar was an MLA at that time. But this kind of atrocity and mayhem by the police happened inside the House for the first time,” he said.
“Bihar police have now become the police of Nitish’s Janata Dal United. We have 200 video footages showing the barbaric acts of the police and administrative officials. We will not tolerate the atrocities on us and the Bihar bandh is one of our acts of protest against it,” Tejashwi added.
Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha has expressed displeasure on the police atrocities on MLAs, of which several video footages have surfaced. He has directed additional chief secretary (home), Chaitanya Prasad, and director-general of police S.K. Singhal to “identify the police personnel who misbehaved with the legislators and submit a report”.
“Action will be taken against the police personnel found guilty of misbehaving with the MLAs. It is everybody’s responsibility to uphold the prestige of the House. We cannot allow anybody to cross the line,” Sinha said.
The Speaker has sent the CCTV footage to the ethics committee of the Assembly to review the behaviour of the MLAs, on the basis of which action could be taken against the erring legislators.
On the other hand, the Patna district administration has registered an FIR against Tejashwi and 20 other RJD leaders including Tej Pratap, state party unit president Jagdanand Singh, former ministers Abdul Bari Siddiqui, Shyam Rajak and others for staging a violent protest while trying to march to the Assembly on Tuesday. The charges slapped against them include attempt to murder (Section 307 of the IPC), among others.
Nitish spent the day at Rajgir in Nalanda district where he inaugurated a nature safari and a modern ropeway to approach the Vishwa Shanti Stupa.
