Assembly adjourned twice before RJD MLA's apology

Patna

: The state assembly on Wednesday was adjourned twice, as the BJP members led by leader of opposition Prem Kumar demanded RJD member

Shambhu Yadav

's apology for his "violent posturing" towards BJP lawmaker

Lal Babu Prasad Gupta

.

Incidentally, the alleged incident occurred when senior BJP lawmaker Ram Narain Mandal was in the chair while

RJD member

Nawaz Alam was speaking against the cut motion on the transport department's budgetary demand earlier moved by another senior BJP member Arun Kumar Sinha. Mandal adjourned the House twice, first for 15 minutes and then for half an hour.

Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary first reminded the lawmakers that he had warned them against "teeka-tipanni" (passing comments) during the speeches of those who participated in the House debate as he clearly foresaw that it could result in an "unfortunate incident."

When asked by Choudhary to make his statement on the incident, Yadav apologized. Yadav also said he was "willing to apologize twice" if the lawmakers also agreed that they would not make any "teeka-tipanni" during the speech of another lawmaker.

Curiously, the setting for the exchange of comments and unsolicited interventions by lawmakers during the House debate was provided by BJP lawmakers who, during the initiation of the cut motion, claimed that the debate should have been held on the over Rs8,000-crore budgetary demand of the health department, and not on that of the transport department which comparatively had a small budget. They also said it was for the first time that such a thing had happened in the post-Independence period.

The Speaker told them that even in the past, the debate had been held on another department's budgetary demand even while that of the health department had been accorded secondary status, or, as is called in legislative parlance, its demand was "guillotined."