Bihar minister insults Speaker, house adjourned

Bihar Vidhan Sabha Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha adjourned the house on Wednesday after Samrat Chaudhary, the Panchayati Raj minister asked him "not to get too anxious", which did not go down well with Sinha.

Sinha strongly objected to the Hindi word "vyakul" used by Samrat Chaudhary, which loosely translates to being anxious.

The Speaker asked the minister to withdraw his remark immediately which he not only refused but repeated to Sinha's chagrin.

Sinha believes that the word used by Chaudhary was "disgraceful and unparliamentary". He said it was an insult to the Chair.

As Chaudhary refused to budge and withdraw his remarks, Sinha adjourned the house till 2 p.m.

The incident occurred when Sinha detected that there were 16 questions related to Chaudhary's ministry being asked online and only 11 of them were being answered.

Sinha suggested Chaudhary to ask his ministry officials to answer all questions.

This led to the argument between the two and Chaudhary asked the Speaker "not to get too anxious, answers will come".

Sinha asked the minister to withdraw his comment but was denied.

Following the incident, JDU-BJP leaders went to the Speaker's chamber and requested him to start the proceedings of the House but Sinha refused.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, the former Chief Minister and HAM president said: "The statement of Samrat Chaudhary was unparliamentary. No one directs or dictates the Speaker. He should apologize to the Speaker to sort out the problem. If he denies, it will not be healthy for parliamentary democracy."

Pratima Das, a Congress leader said: "The minister should apologize to the Speaker. The Speaker has rightly asked him to answer all questions. It seems that the minister was shielding his own shortcomings. Hence, he was avoiding giving answers to all questions.”