The monsoon session of the Bihar legislature started on a stormy note on Monday with the Opposition BJP demanding the resignation of Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav over the inclusion of his name in the CBI chargesheet in the alleged land-for-jobs scam in the railways.
On the other hand, the ruling Grand Alliance member CPI(ML) hit out at the BJP over the widespread violence in Manipur and the failure of the central and the state government in checking it.
The BJP and the CPI(ML) started raising the issues on the state legislature premises before the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council met for the day. The BJP later carried their demand inside both Houses.
As the Assembly session began after the national anthem and the opening address of Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary, the BJP chief whip Janak Singh stood up and said: “There is a tradition of the House that any minister, if chargesheeted, has resigned or has been asked by the chief minister to resign. It should be followed.”
The other BJP legislators took it as a cue and started shouting slogans demanding the resignation of Tejaswhi, who was present in the House and sat next to chief minister Nitish Kumar.
While Nitish and Tejashwi did not react to the situation, the Speaker snubbed thesaffron party MLAs into silence.
Finance minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary tabled the first supplementary budget for the current financial budget 2023-24 of Rs 43,775 crore.
This was followed by condolence of four former MLAs and MLCs and the House was adjourned till Tuesday morning.
Later, the Opposition leader Vijay Kumar Sinha questioned Nitish’s policy on corruption.
“What happened to Nitish’s famous zero tolerance on corruption? He has compromised with corruption for the sake of being in power. The public will never tolerate this,” Sinha said while iterating the demand for Tejashwi’s resignation.
Sinha also reminded that earlier Jitan Ram Manjhi, Manju Verma, Kartik Kumar, Mewalal Choudhary and a couple of others had to resign from Nitish’s cabinet after their name figured as accused in different cases.
