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Clash mars condolence session in Bihar assembly

Our Correspondent in Patna

The Bihar Legislative Assembly sank to a new low today. The treasury and opposition benches clashed even as the House met to pay tribute to Gurudas Chatterjee, MLA, Vijay Singh Soy, former MP, and others who died recently.

True, unruly incidents are quite common in state assemblies, and more so in Bihar, but never since Independence has such violence occurred during a condolence meeting.

A statement by Leader of the Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi, demanding Chief Minister Rabri Devi's resignation for having been 'chargesheeted' in a corruption case and failing to prevent political murders, sent the House into a tizzy.

The chief minister and other ruling party members objected to Modi's uncharitable comment while participating in a condolence meeting.

The verbal duel continued for a while with former chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav, who had arrived from jail by then, also joining in.

But when BJP legislator Ashwini Chaubey left his seat and advanced towards the treasury benches, some ruling party members led by Aniruddha Prasad 'Sadhu' Yadav, Rabri Devi's brother, threw a chair and loudspeaker at the BJP camp, hitting two MLAs, Prem Kumar and C M Rai. The free-for-all continued for several minutes, leading to a 10-minute adjournment. When the House met again, the National Democratic Alliance members walked out.

In his speech, Laloo Yadav expressed sorrow that this unfortunate incident had occurred while the House was paying tribute to Chatterjee, a "great fighter for the cause of the poor". He apologized for the conduct of his party members, including Sadhu Yadav, but also condemned the behaviour of Modi and the others.

The RJD chief requested the speaker to get the House to adopt a resolution condemning Modi's attempt to politicise the condolence meeting. "Is the entire country going to hell because the home minister and human resources minister are chargesheeted? Do we abuse them as chargesheeted every time we open our mouths," he asked.

The NDA leaders later registered their protest with the speaker and went to meet Governor Vinod Pande. They may boycott the special session on Jharkhand tomorrow.

Later, when things calmed down a bit, both ruling party and opposition members condemned the incident, calling it unfortunate. While Laloo Yadav apologised on behalf of the RJD, Uma Shankar Singh, leader of the Samata Legislature Party, said Modi should not have made such comments at a condolence meeting.

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