Patna: Political acrimony between the ruling Janata Dal (United) and opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) played itself out in the Bihar Assembly when members from both the parties traded blows.
The RJD was demanding answers from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over alleged toilet scam, Srijan scam, and corruption in the appointment of lecturers apart from a discussion on the recent spurt in crime across the state.
JD(U) members insisted on allowing the proceedings of question hour to run smoothly during which party's MLA Birendra Singh voiced his reservation over his own government's land mining policy.
Members of Opposition supported him but after the end of the question hour, RJD MLA Bhai Virendra reached out to Birendra Singh and asked why his own government was hell-bent on implementing anti-people policies?
RJD member Abdul Bari Siddiqui told the Chair "members of the ruling side are behaving in a manner in which the opposition has been known to behave".
State Minister Nand Kishore Yadav reacted angrily saying the ruling side "will not allow the opposition to manipulate the proceedings in an arbitrary manner".
Later, as members were dispersing after the Speaker adjourned the House, Bhai Virendra of the RJD and Virendra Singh of the JD(U) nearly came to blows inside the House over allegations and counter allegations in the trade of sand and stone chips.
Bhai Virendra was heard remarking "I only said that people from the ruling side are known to have mafia-like interest in sand and stone chips trade, but to this Virendra Singh reacted in an abusive manner".
As angry exchanges continued between them, some members tried to pacify the two MLAs.
Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav later told reporters "our party has lodged a complaint against the use of abusive language by the JD(U) MLA and the Speaker has promised that he will look into it".
He also alleged "Sushil Modi has tutored his MLAs to provoke us to resort to violence so that they could later defame us before the media".
Alok Kumar
Comments
0 comment