PATNA: The Bihar Legislative Council on Friday witnessed a bizarre protest by a leader of the state’s main opposition party, the RJD. Subodh Rai, RJD MLC and close confidant of Lalu Prasad Yadav, reached the Bihar Legislative Council carrying a live rat in a cage.
He was staging a protest against the state government’s failure to start an inquiry into how rodents damaged bottles of saline water in a government school and gulped seized liquor stored at a police station.
Mocking the government, Rai said rats were declared guilty of damaging an embankment of a river, drinking cartons of bottles of saline water and gulping a huge quantity of liquor.
“Fed up with these rodents, I have trapped a rat and brought it here. Now it is up to the NDA government to give strict punishment to this rat for gulping liquor, creating a hole in the embankment and
drinking saline water," he quipped.
When this bizarre protest drew attention, some MLCs of the Congress party also joined Rai in staging a demonstration.
Former CM Rabri Devi and MLC of RJD also came out in support of Rai, noting how rats were blamed for damaging an embankment of the Water Resource Department a few years ago by the then minister Lallan Singh.
“As the state government blamed the rodents, the RJD MLC arrived with a rat to get it punished,” she said.
Earlier on February 20, Rabri Devi had tweeted and asked the state government, “Should the rats leave Bihar or the thieves?"
“This is the same Bihar government under which rats ate up an embankment built at Rs 1100 crore, gulped 9 lakh litres of liquor in police custody and damaged 40,000 folders related to documents kept for verification of contractual teachers," she added.
Meanwhile, Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said the RJD does not have solid evidence, so they are trying to divert attention by bringing a rat in a bid to make headlines.
He attacked the RJD and said, “As a responsible opposition, instead of catching a rat, the RJD should work for development with facts and figures.”