The winter session of the Bihar legislature began on a stormy note on Monday with the CPIML legislators demonstrating against the waqf (Amendment) bill brought in the Parliament.

The Left party MLAs took out a procession inside the Bihar legislative Assembly campus against the waqf (Amendment) bill and asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government wanted to forcibly impose it on the people of the country and foster communal tension. They demanded that the bill be withdrawn.

“The BJP is trying to damage the socio-economic fabric of the country by making such moves. We demand that the bill should be taken back. We also appeal to chief minister Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal United (JDU) to stop supporting the bill in the Parliament,” CPIML legislature party leader Mehboob Alam said.

He added that the waqf bill was an attack on the Constitution and the right of the minority community tohave property.

Alam, who led the demonstration, urged chief minister Nitish Kumar to use his clout with the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and ensure withdrawal of the proposed legislation.

“All types of public properties used by Muslims - madrasas, kabristan, khanqah — belong to waqf. The proposed bill is nothing short of a full-blown assault on the community by the ruling BJP at the Centre,” alleged Alam.

“Tomorrow, we will bring an adjournment motion in the assembly”, said the Left leader whose party is a part of the INDIA bloc and has 11 members in the 243-strongAssembly.

Replying to a query, he said the CPIML believes chief minister Nitish Kumar’s reported refusal to attend Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind president Arshad Madani’s function here on Sunday was “due to personal engagements and not reflective of any change in ideology”.

“But we are aware that the government at the Centre depends on the support of the chief minister’s JDU for its survival. It is Nitish Kumar’s moral duty to ensure that the waqf bill is stalled,” he said

The winter session will continue till November 29. The three newly elected MLAs — Manorama Devi of the JDU from Belaganj, Deepa Manjhi of the Hindustani Awam Morcha Secular from Imamganj and Ashok Kumar Singh of the BJP from Ramgarh — took oath in the Assembly, while BJP MLA Vishal Prashant from Tarari will take oathon Tuesday.

The state government tabled its second supplementary budget of ₹22,697 crore in the Assembly. The session was adjourned after condoling the death of former legislators.

Additional reporting by PTI