After fight with Nitish, now Bihar Speaker annoyed by absence of ministers in Assembly
PATNA: Bihar Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha on Wednesday took a serious view of the repeated absence of certain ministers at the time of tabling the budgetary demands of their respective departments in the ongoing budget session.
The credibility of legislatures is linked to the conduct of their members, he said.
"Proceedings of the House cannot be taken lightly either by ministers or members. And I must say that the precedence of tabling the budgetary demand of a particular department by the minister concerned must be followed as it is an important annual legislative business," Sinha told PTI.
The Speaker said he conveyed this to the members of the treasury benches during the day.
He, however, refused to reveal the names of ministers who remained absent at the time of tabling the budgetary demands of their respective departments.
"The ministers who are supposed to lay papers on the table of the house should not be absent. I am not talking about extreme circumstances, but it should not become a habit," Sinha said.
Senior leaders of political parties must ensure that members follow the rules strictly and maintain the dignity of the House, he said.
The Bihar assembly was on Wednesday repeatedly disrupted on account of vociferous protests by the opposition which demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over hooch deaths around Holi, forcing adjournment of proceedings on two occasions.
The issue was first raised during Zero Hour when MLAs of Congress, RJD and the Left trooped into the well raising slogans against the chief minister and could not be pacified despite a request by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary that the matter of hooch deaths be discussed when the budgetary outlay for Home Department is put to vote on Friday.
Around 12.30 PM, Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha adjourned the House till 2 PM, and again till 4.50 PM when it reassembled for the post lunch session.
At 4.50 PM, the chief minister also came to the House and the opposition MLAs remained on their feet raising the slogan "Nitish Kumar isteefa do" (Nitish Kumar, resign) even as the speaker hurriedly conducted the business for the day and adjourned the proceedings till Thursday.
More than 20 deaths, blamed on consumption of spurious liquor, were reported around Holi from the districts of Banka, Bhagalpur, Madhepura and Buxar.
These came barely a few months after about 40 people died around Deepawali in hooch tragedies reported from some other districts.
The police has claimed that in most cases the district magistrates concerned have said the deaths had other causes like accidents or illnesses, or, the bodies had been cremated by family members before autopsy because of which further investigation was not possible.
In Bhagalpur, according to Senior SP Babu Ram, a case has been registered on the statement of Arvind Yadav, a resident of Sahibganj locality who had fallen ill and confessed to consumption of alcohol during the festivities.
Sale and consumption of alcohol were completely banned by the Nitish Kumar government in April, 2016.
While the chief minister has asserted that hooch tragedies were a reason for more stringent measures for enforcement of prohibition and ordered surveillance through drones and helicopters, the opposition has maintained that the ban on liquor remained only on paper and bootleggers were facilitating "home delivery".
It has also been repeatedly alleged by the opposition that while poor people ended up being behind bars for flouting prohibition, the big fish enjoyed the patronage of influential politicians and bureaucrats.