At least two women fainted, 600 and odd people started shouting slogans and policemen on duty could hardly do anything to control visitors to the chief minister's janata durbar on Monday.

And, Jitan Ram Manjhi was missing from the scene when the chaos took place at 1 Aney Marg - the chief minister's official residence and also the janata durbar venue.

Everything seemed normal even half-an-hour before the durbar was to start at 10.30am. However, at 10.15am, Union minister Uma Bharati reached 1 Aney Marg to meet Manjhi and their meeting went on till 11.35am at the lawn itself.

After the meeting, Uma and Manjhi briefed the media for about five minutes and both went to another round of meeting at Samvad along with water resources minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary.

On the other hand, the complainants who had come from far-off places, were visibly angry over the delay in starting the durbar. Around that time, principal secretary to chief minister Amrit Lal Meena got a message from Manjhi that he had asked revenue and land reforms minister Narendra Narayan Yadav and registration, excise and prohibition minister Awadhesh Prasad Kushwaha to start the durbar as he would be reaching late.

At last, the durbar began at 11.40am and both the senior ministers started looking at the applications. Secretary to chief minister Atish Chandra and officer on special duty (OSD) to chief minister Gopal Singh were also helping the ministers.

However, the complainants were not satisfied and wanted to explain their problem to the chief minister only leading to a chaotic condition. It all started when Noor Jahan (48) from Rohtas district fainted on the floor. Later, it was known that she was standing in the queue for one-and-a-half hours in empty stomach.

That was the first case. After 10 minutes, another women fainted with similar case and she was put on a stretcher. After seeing this, the 600 and odd crowd got angry and started shouting slogans against officers present there.

First, the hooting started from one corner and spread to the rest of the durbar hall. Patna senior superintendent of police Jitendra Rana started making round from one corner to another and requested the people to calm down.

However, the complainants were not ready to listen to anyone. Even Atish Chandra came and directed the security personal to control the situation. Parsuram Pandey (43) a, resident of Buxar district, said: 'What kind of janata durbar is going on when the chief minister was not present and people are fainting on the floor?'

The security officers on duty tried their best to control the situation but chaos prevailed for over one hour until the chief minister returned at 12.40 pm. Once Manjhi occupied his chair, all the complainants got silent. Later, they were served tea and biscuits.

Being the first durbar of the month, it gets over usually by 1.30pm. However, it got over by 3.30pm on Monday.