Bihar assembly saw the passing of a bill which would give more power to the police, on Tuesday. That led to vigorous protests by legislators. The protest became so chaotic that police had to be called to physically evict the leaders from the assembly floor.

Members of the opposition Grand Alliance, comprising RJD, Congress and the Left, were agitated over the Bihar Special Armed Police Bill, 2021. That led to a ruckus which caused the house proceedings to be adjourned as many as five times.

Leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav, who courted arrest while participating in a procession taken out against the “black law”, in addition to other issues, gave an inkling of what was in store at an early morning press conference.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Wednesday hit out at the opposition parties over Tuesday’s ruckus in the state assembly. SK Modi said that he had never witnessed such scenes of ‘hooliganism, sabotage and scuffle’ in the 32 years of his career as a parliamentarian. “If tomorrow they (opposition) get another chance, they will do the same for the entire state of Bihar,” the BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP added.

After being let off by the police, which had taken Tejashwi Yadav and other RJD leaders to the Kotwali police station for taking out the unauthorized procession and indulging in stone-pelting which led to use of force and water cannons, Yadav was back in the assembly when it reassembled at 3 pm, after having been adjourned thrice since morning.

No sooner than minister Bijendra Yadav presented the bill for debate, opposition members trooped into the well where marshals rushed to prevent the agitated legislators from getting physical with those in the treasury benches.

Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha adjourned the House till 1630 hours but ended up being held hostage inside his chamber as Grand Alliance members surrounded it from all sides and squatted shouting slogans.

A heavy contingent of police personnel wearing riot gear also reached the premises and they got down to work, physically evicting many MLAs stubbornly refusing to let the Speaker come out.

In the meantime, proceedings resumed with senior BJP MLA Prem Kumar in the Chair but the agitation seemed to have rubbed on all members of the legislature.

Ashok Choudhary, an affable MLC who was present in the assembly in his capacity as a minister, was seen uncharacteristically agitated when he rushed into the well, egging on fellow JD(U) legislators to follow suit when some opposition legislators tried to snatch away the papers from Prem Kumar.

The bill, which was introduced last week, seeks to rename the Bihar Military Police, give it more teeth, and allegedly empowers the force to arrest people without a warrant.

Bhai Virendra, the RJD MLA from Maner said, “Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is directly involved in the brutal act. He is behaving like Hitler. He has given a free hand to police to initiate lathi charge on us. Many of us have received fracture in hands and skulls.”

RJD MLC Subodh Rai said, “We were assembled there to point out our grievances, but the Speaker did not listen to us. Still, we peacefully sat there in expectation that he would come out from his chamber and listen us, but he did not. The police and marshals of the Vidhan Sabha forcibly threw us out from the premises; their act was cruel behaviour with public representatives. We are not criminals.”