Poster of BJP’s assembly march to be held on Thursday. (Image: News18)
The monsoon session was adjourned for the third day after Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav was charge-sheeted in the land-for-jobs scam, demanding his resignation from BJP MLAs.
Amid protests on the streets of Patna and uproar in the Bihar Legislative Assembly, the BJP will take out a massive march to the Assembly on Thursday (July 13). The monsoon session was adjourned for the third day on Wednesday as chairs were uprooted and papers were hurled by BJP legislators demanding the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav.
Yadav was chargesheeted in the land for jobs scam. The MLAs are now accusing Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of being afraid of the RJD due to his alleged inaction in the matter and calling him a ‘suffocating CM’.
Former BJP minister Neeraj Kumar Bablu told cnn-news18, “Kursi Kumar (Nitish Kumar) has surrendered himself to the corrupt RJD, land and liquor mafias. He has become a ‘kneeling chief minister’ and that is why he is not able to demand resignation from an accused minister. Although in the past Nitish Kumar had accepted the resignations of Jitan Ram Manjhi, Ramadhar Singh, Mevalal Chowdhary and filed a charge sheet; But what happened this time? Why is he afraid of taking the resignation of the Deputy Chief Minister? He has surrendered and does not have the guts to ask.”
After coming out of the assembly, Yadav spoke to the media and said, “The kind of behavior shown by the BJP MLAs does not show that they are the representatives of the people.” They are not interested in raising the issues of the people and are engaged in hooliganism. I was charge sheeted in 2017 also, what happened in these six years? No one raised any questions when I took the oath for the second time; Why now?”
Meanwhile, the state Congress leaders participated in the ‘silent satyagraha’ where all the MLAs and MLCs of the party sat on a dharna at the Gandhi statue to protest against the alleged vendetta politics of the central government and extended their support to Rahul Gandhi.
State Congress President Akhilesh Singh told cnn-news18“It is all about the injustice done to Rahul Gandhi, who has been wrongly disqualified from Parliament by the (Narendra) Modi government. We are not questioning the judiciary but the kind of ‘vendetta politics’ being practiced by the Center is not acceptable. We will continue to protest till our leader gets justice.
Street protests and lathicharge
Earlier in the day, the police resorted to lathicharge to disperse members of the farmers’ organization marching towards the state assembly. The protesters were demanding the appointment of public servants on their blocks, but the police stopped them and chased them away with lathis. Many farmers were injured and the leaders were detained.
Patna SDM Shrikant Khandekar said, “We had to disperse them as they were given enough time to leave the area. Section 144 of CrPC is applicable, so no one can protest in the vicinity of the assembly. Gardnibagh has been designated for the protests.
A protest in Patna earlier this month against new teacher recruitment rules in Bihar turned unruly, prompting police to use force to control the agitators, injuring several. Stones were pelted at the police and lathicharged in return.
Teaching aspirants who have passed the Teacher Eligibility Test conducted by the Center and the State are protesting against the state’s new rules for appointment, transfer, disciplinary action and service conditions of school teachers. According to the rules, the appointment of teachers in the state will be done through a written examination to be conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission. Thus they will be appointed as State Government employees. The existing teachers are protesting against this and have demanded that they should also be given equal status without passing the written test.
Matters escalated when the state government decided to withdraw the domicile requirement for new recruits and opened up teaching jobs to all Indian citizens. Not only the candidates, but a large number of contractual teachers are also demanding the status of state government employees. There are about 60,000 secondary and higher secondary teachers in the state and about 3.4 lakh are working in primary and middle schools.
On Tuesday (July 11), more than 10,000 teachers gathered at the Gardnibagh protest site and demanded the status of state government employees.
Now on Thursday, more than one lakh protesters and BJP supporters from across the state are expected to gather at Gandhi Maidan in Patna. The protesters will be led by BJP MLAs from their constituencies. A ‘Vidhan Sabha March’ has been called by top BJP leaders, where they will raise the issue of corruption, CTET-STET teachers’ jobs, the promise of 10 lakh jobs made by the Nitish Kumar-led government.