A BJP MLA, on a dharna to protest against inadequate water and power supply in Dhanbad district, accused the state government of trying to silence the voice of the people when representatives of the local administration asked him to call off his agitation citing violation of social distancing norms.

“The kind of pressure being built by the administration on the instruction of their political masters in Ranchi is indicative of the authoritarian style of governance being practised in the state,” said MLA Raj Sinha, who was staging a dharna near the district headquarters at Randhir Verma Chowk along with BJP district president (urban) Chandrashekhar Singh.

To prove his point, Sinha cited the arrival of a team, led by Dhanbad circle officer Prashant Kumar Layak and OC of sadar police station Sanjeev Kumar Tiwari, to talk him into stopping his protest.

“It is my duty to raise issues being faced by the people as everyone is reeling under the impact of poor water and power supply in the district during the lockdown,” Sinha said, claiming that he had been observing social distancing norms during the protest.

“Some people are taking videos. Others are murmuring that an FIR will be filed against me for staging a dharna during lockdown,” Sinha said, terming the administration’s directive to call off the dharna as “Tughlaqi farmaan” of the state government.

“What else we can expect from a government which promulgated an ordinance to impose a fine of Rs 1 lakh for not wearing masks,” he added.

Elsewhere, a ruling party leader criticised the BJP for “wasting money” in the name of inaugurating multi-storied party offices, referring to Tuesday’s online inauguration of new BJP party offices in eight districts, including Dhanbad.

In a media statement. vice president of Jharkhand Pradesh Yuva Congress Abhijeet Raj said, “While chief minister Heman Soren was busy establishing a plasma therapy centre in Ranchi for Covid patients, top leaders of the BJP were inaugurating new party offices.”

He asked the BJP to declare how many new hospitals had been established by it during the last six years.

He also accused the BJP central leadership of trying to distract the attention of common man from core issues by launching the process of building a temple in Ayodhya. “While we are not averse to having a Ram Mandir, the priority in the time of a pandemic should be to beef up health facilities,” he said.