On Wednesday, the Bihar Assembly became a political battleground after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar engaged in a war of words with the Opposition Leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process being carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI). This was done during a raging debate where Yadav accused the SIR exercise of being flawed and not transparent.
Tejashwi Yadav also alleged that revision by the state government was being performed in a big rush only a few months before elections, alleging that it was making the lives of the poor difficult, more so getting the necessary 11 documents to be registered as a voter. He also noted that migrant workers living outside Bihar were not being allowed to revise and noted that the short ten-day period to submit documents was unfeasible and inequitable towards the economically poorer groups.
In a crisp reply, Nitish Kumar treated Yadav with the memory of the infamous period of jungle raj that existed during the Bihar Rashtriya Janata Dal regime of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi between 1990 and 2005. “You are not a child now; you cannot comprehend how afraid people were of going out after sunset in Patna during those days. We have been working on behalf of all communities and have brought development,” Kumar responded. And he also pointed out that he had enjoyed a short period in the RJD, and then he was back in the NDA because he had chosen development over misgovernance.
The bad-tempered exchanges were even compounded by derogatory complaint by RJD MLA Bhai Virendra, who later was asked to apologize by Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav. Even after being asked to do so a number of times, Virendra rudely declined to apologise, making a pandemonium to adjourn the House. At the time of resuming proceedings that were after 2 pm, the Assembly moved amid chaos and passed six bills, one of which is important in order to provide social security benefits to gig workers in the state.
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