Patna: Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary on Tuesday used his discretion to allow passage of the Bihar Appropriation Bill, 2018, prompting the RJD, which was demanding a headcount, to allege that "democracy has been murdered".

An appropriation bill - presented to seek the Assembly's permission to withdraw funds from the state exchequer for undertaking works mentioned in the state's budget related to departments - is a money bill. If the money bill had failed to pass, the NDA state government would have fallen.

Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav claimed that the number of MLAs who were against the passage of the bill was more than those supporting it, and that the bill could not have been passed had a headcount been passed.

Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the finance department, had tabled the bill seeking the House's approval to withdraw Rs 1.77 lakh crore from the state's consolidated fund. It was followed by a debate on the bill with Opposition members speaking against it and those from the treasury benches speaking in support of it.

Tejashwi and senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui were not present in the House during the debate. Tejashwi's elder brother, Tej Pratap Yadav, was. Once Modi gave the government's reply after the debate, the bill was taken up for passage. RJD members demanded voting.

The Speaker ordered the ringing of the bell so that those willing to join the voting could enter the House. Once the bell stops ringing the House doors are closed and no one is allowed entry.

After that, the Speaker, using his discretionary powers, ordered voting on the bill through voice vote, rejecting the Opposition's demand for a head count.

RJD members sat on a dharna outside the Speaker's chamber raising slogans against him and accusing him of "murder of the democratic process". The protest ended after Tejashwi had a brief meeting with Chaudhary in the Speaker's chamber. After coming out of the Speaker's chamber, Tejashwi directed his MLAs to come to his chamber where they held a meeting for about 30 minutes. Dissident NDA leader Jitan Ram Manjhi and Congress leader Awadhesh Prasad Singh too took part in the meeting.

"It is murder of democracy," Tejashwi told reporters later. "We will appraise the governor about it once he comes back to Patna. For now we would send our memorandum to him through fax and email. I will also speak to him over phone." He demanded chief minister Nitish Kumar's resignation on moral grounds.