BJP MLAs outside the Assembly protest against the drug supply scandal on Tuesday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Patna, July 8: The Assembly and the Bihar Legislative Council remained paralysed for the second consecutive day today as the row between the JDU and the BJP members continued.

Legislators of both the parties stormed into the Well of the Council and the Assembly raising slogans against each other. While the BJP was demanding a CBI probe into the drug scam, the JDU members gave slogans against Haryana BJP leader O.P. Dhankar’s statement promising brides from Bihar if the party was voted to power in the northern state.

The only difference between Monday and Tuesday was that the RJD legislators did not join JDU in the Well. “We do not want to be seen as a B team of the JDU,” said an RJD MLA.

The casualty of the daylong obstructions was the budgetary demand of the public health and engineering department of over Rs 1,700 crore, passed without discussions amid deafening cacophony.

It was a day of dramatics as the BJP gave notice to the Speaker to move a censure motion in the House against the ruling party for obstructing the proceedings.

“The responsibility of running the House primarily lies on the ruling party. This is the first time in the Indian parliamentary history that a ruling party is obstructing the proceedings of the two Houses on a non-issue because when they ran smoothly, the government was caught on the wrong foot frequently,” said BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.

Countering the BJP’s view, chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said: “Both the sides need to make efforts to run the Houses.” Trying to highlight the Dhankar issue, he said even the Lok Sabha Speaker had made adverse comments on the Haryana legislator.

The Assembly Speaker, Uday Narayan Chaudhary, hardly made any effort to end the logjam apart from making appeals to the MLAs to take their seats. “The Speaker should have called a meeting of leaders of all parties and tried to thrash out a solution,” said an RJD MLA.

In another development, JDU MLA Manjit Kumar Singh filed a case at the Sachivalaya police station against Dhankar, stressing that the latter’s statement had damaged the reputation of Bihari women. He asserted that the case against Dhankar should be registered under sections 153A, 153B, 294, 354, 366, 504, 505 and 506 of IPC.

Chhapra advocate and JDU leader Chandra Kant Pandit on Tuesday lodged a complaint before the court of chief judicial magistrate, Anil Kumar Jha, alleging that Dhankar's statements were derogatory towards women of Bihar.

BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi continued to defend Dhankar and claimed that the latter had actually spoken against trafficking of girls from Bihar to Haryana for forceful marriage.

He pointed out that the inspector-general, weaker sections, had written to several superintendents of police mentioning that trafficking of girls had occurred in Katihar and other districts for marriage in Haryana. He alleged that the JDU was raising the issue to divert public attention from the drug scam when Nitish Kumar was the chief minister and held the health portfolio.