RJD legislators Thursday took umbrage at pro-tem Speaker Jitan Ram Manjhi’s statement that despite not being a member of the Assembly Lalu Prasad attended the House when Rabri Devi was the chief minister of Bihar and demanded the Speaker to expunge the remarks from the record. Manjhi had made the comment Wednesday during Speakers election when opposition members were demanding that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his ministers Ashok Choudhary and Mukesh Sahni be asked to leave the House as they are not members of the assembly.
Choudhary and Sahni left the house but Kumar remained seated. Kumar is a member of the legislative council.
Choudhary who is minister for Education and Building Construction is a former MLC, whose tenure has ended. Sahni, also a minister and who heads NDA ally Vikasshseel Insaan Party (VIP), lost in the recently held state polls. He is not a member of either of the two houses at present. A total of 17 vacant posts, including 12 nominated members, in the council has to be filled.
After the RJD members who raised anti-government slogans and were adamant on removing Manjhi’s statement from the previous day's house proceedings, Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha said "it (statement) will be removed from the proceedings of the House once it is established in a probe that it is untrue." As the House assembled again after Governors address to the joint sitting of the state legislature, RJD member Alok Mehta raised the issue of Manjhi's remarks on Prasad. In a bid to silence the opposition members who were insisting that the chief minister should be asked to leave the house before voting for the Speaker's post begins, Manjhi had said "Lalu Prasad had attended proceedings when he was a member of Lok Sabha and Rabri Devi the Chief Minister".
"Manjhis statement is false and probably he may have been given wrong information in this regard," Mehta said while requesting the Speaker to remove the statement from the proceedings of the house. On this, the Speaker said that he would look into the matter, but the RJD members were not ready to relent and rushed into the well of the house, raising anti-government slogans.
Manjhi, who rejected the oppositions demands for asking the chief minister to go out, said that CM is the leader of the house and his presence is very much in accordance with the rules. Besides, the chief minister along with the Leader of the Opposition is supposed to escort the new Speaker to the chair.
Speaker Vijay Sinha also declared that while Kumar will be the leader of the house, Tejashwi Yadav will be the Leader of Opposition (LOP) in the assembly. The Speaker also announced a panel of five members who would preside over the house proceedings in his absence during the first session of the 17th assembly.
Prem Kumar (BJP), Hari Narayan Singh (JD-U), Awadh Bihari Choudhary (RJD), Lessi Singh (JD-U) and Mohammad Afaque Alam (Congress) have been named as "Presiding Officers" for the session which will come to an end Friday.
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