Bedlam in House over Thakur’s removal

PATNA: There never was such a strong support from the RJD for the upper caste Bhumihars in the last 13 years, as seen inside the assembly on Monday when independent MLA Jagdish Sharma raised the issue of the removal of Dr C P Thakur immediately after the House assembled for business.
The entire ruling benches were on their feet virtually supporting Sharma and his group of independent MLAs as they pointed towards the anguish and anger in the caste over the dropping of Thakur from the Union cabinet.
Even as Speaker Sadanand Singh tried to point out that the matter did not concern the state, chief minister Rabri Devi was on her feet pleading to hear out Jagdish Sharma. Ministers Awadh Bihari Choudhary, Shivanand Tiwari, Shyam Rajak and MLA Sadhu Yadav were giving strong vocal support to Jagdish Sharma even as a disheartened BJP bench sat silently. Industries minister Ravindra Charan Yadav insisted that the matter concerned the state as a ‘law and order’ problem had arisen. “The BJP state office was attacked and the life of the BJP chief was under threat�, he remarked. JD(U) leader Ganesh Yadav remarked that the RJD was silent when there own ministers Shivanand Tiwari and Abdul Bari Siddiqui were being publicly insulted.
The BJP bench was, however, on its feet when Shivanand Tiwari suggested that it was not the Prime Minister who decided who was to be the health minister, but manufacturers of Pan Masalas. Leader of the opposition Sushil Kumar Modi was heard asserting that the ruling party had no right to express its sympathies for the caste, when during the last 13 years, it had made so many derogatory remarks against it. Jagdish Sharma and independent MLAs belonging to the same caste — Suraj Bhan, Munna Shukla and Aruna Devi — held a joint press meet on the assembly premises, where they threatened to launch a state-wide agitation against the dropping of Thakur.
They charged the Prime Minister and the BJP with insulting the Bhumihars - the caste which had solidly fought Laloo-Rabri regime for the last 13 years. “C P Thakur represented the caste and the induction of Nikhil Choudhary will not appease them, because Choudhary does not enjoy the same status as Thakur�, insisted Sharma, stressing that the BJP will have to answer to the caste as to why it dropped Thakur.
Modi was a mellowed man on Monday. “The state BJP tried its best to prevent the dropping of Thakur from the Union ministry.But we do not know what compulsions led to his dropping,� he remarked. BJP MLAs were at a loss to explain the dropping of Thakur.