Opp. forces vote on Home budget
2 min readPatna: A drama unfolded in the second half of the Assembly session when the Opposition insisted on voting before passing the budgetary demand of the Home department.
Energy minister Bijendra Yadav, on behalf of the government, had moved the motion for the Assembly’s approval to the budgetary demand of the Home department worth Rs 8,615.65 for 2018-19.
The Opposition RJD had brought a cut-motion demanding a token cut of Rs 10 in the proposal. After debate, during which members from the Opposition and the Treasury spoke in support and against the token cut, the cut motion was rejected by the House by a voice vote.
After this the original motion, put forward by the government, was taken up for the approval of the House. Speaker Vijay Kumar Choudhary adopted the same method for its approval but the Opposition demanded voting.
Finally, the Speaker conceded the Opposition’s demand and all the doors of the House were closed for voting. Four of the Assembly staff were put on work for counting the numbers in support and against the government’s proposal.
First, the head count of those supporting the proposal was done and then that of those who were opposing it.
The process took around 10 minutes after which the Speaker announced that while 92 members had supported the passage of the budgetary demand, there were 64 who were opposed to it. Hence, the proposal stood approved by the House.
Following this, the budgetary demand of several other departments, including those of building construction and cabinet secretariat were approved using guillotine.
The debate on the budgetary proposal of the Home department started with a long speech by RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who tore into the government on law and order. Praising the works done by the state police despite staff shortage, Siddiqui slammed the government on several issues, including prohibition.
He said only poor people and those coming from backward and Dalit communities were being implicated in cases related to prohibition and said influential people were getting home delivery of liquor without any problem.
He raised the issue of 163 missing police personnel from Patna policelines and demanded that the state government should share information about other policelines.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
