BJP MLAs demonstrate in the Assembly in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

BJP played the Hindutva card on chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday as its MLAs stormed into the Well of the House raising slogans against the CM for being “anti-Hindu”.

The party demanded that their adjournment motion on the government’s alleged neglect towards pilgrims from Bihar during the Uttarakhand deluge be accepted.

Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary told agitating BJP MLAs that he had accepted a call attention motion on the same issue and the BJP was free to raise the matter then. However, Leader of the Opposition Nand Kishore Yadav said the issue in the call attention was limited. “We wanted to raise why the state government left thousands of Bihari pilgrims in the lurch. The Speaker was forced to adjourn the House for the entire pre-lunch period,” he said.

Later, speaking to mediapersons, Nand Kishore tried to dilute the slogans stressing that the issue was raised for Biharis stuck in the aftermath of floods in Uttarakhand. “If there were a couple of Muslims running shops, our concern was also for them,” he said. He said the floods struck on June 16; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Uttarkhand on June 19.

“The government of Bihar held its first meeting on June 19. On June 27, a team of four officials were sent just to open an information centre,” he said. He justified the BJP’s move to stall proceedings of the House. “The House has been running for three days but the meeting of the business advisory committee that decides the agenda of the House has not been called. It is clear that the government does not want to hold discussions on issues,” he said, alleging that the state government still had not come out with the list of the deceased.