RJD legislators stage a protest outside the Assembly on Thursday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Forget the chief minister, even the Opposition did not expect such a surprise, followed by embarrassment, on the last day of the Assembly’s budget session.

Durga Prasad Singh, the RJD MLA, moved a no-confidence motion against the Nitish Kumar government. Nitish also requested Speaker Uday Narayan Chaudhary to accept the motion. “After all, it’s the duty and responsibility of the main opposition party to move a no-confidence motion,” he said before the Speaker asked Singh to move his motion.

Singh said: “Now, that the Chair has agreed, I will move the motion after having a talk with my fellow colleagues.” However, the Speaker said according to the rules, he was to move his motion immediately.

The RJD MLA read out his notice, which stated that the House had lost confidence in the government. As the Speaker asked the MLAs supporting the motion, only the RJD MLAs stood. The Congress MLAs remained seated and so did the lone CPI MLA in the Opposition. The headcount showed just 17. “According to rule 109 of the Rules of Legislative Business, there should be at least 23 MLAs standing in support for the motion of no-confidence to be accepted for discussion. The motion is rejected,” the Speaker said, sending the NDA members into peals of laughter.

Incidentally, the Leader of the Opposition, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, was not present in the House when the motion was moved. He had gone to participate in the last rites of RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s brother.

“It is a symbol of how the RJD has treated this democratic institution. The motion was moved in the absence of their leader and without knowing that 23 MLAs were needed to begin no-confidence debate. The people should know how casually the RJD treats its responsibility,” said minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary who immediately faced a stiff opposition from Raghvendra Pratap Singh of the RJD. “I have been a member of this House much longer than you. I know my responsibility very well,” the opposition MLA said.

However, the Opposition was clearly embarrassed as another RJD MLA Dinesh Singh was asked to stop midway while reading out his call-attention notice. He joined a walkout staged by the Opposition.

Outside the House, several RJD MLAs said that they felt humiliated. “I did not know that Durga Prasad Singh had moved a no-confidence motion,” said the RJD chief whip, Samarat Choudhary. “I came to know about this development when the Speaker asked Singh to read out his motion,” said another RJD MLA Akhtarul Imam. “How can you move a no-confidence motion without consulting your leader and allies? We made a laughing stock of ourselves,” said another MLA.

However, Durga Prasad Singh was unfazed. “The motion was not aimed at dislodging the government but to censure it,” he said.

The RJD has 22 MLAs in the Assembly while the LJP and CPI has one each. The Congress has four.

“Had we really wanted to move a no-confidence motion, we should have approach all the 28 MLAs to stand in its favour. With the NDA having more than 210 MLAs supporting it, defeating it was out of question. But we could have grilled the government inside the House,” he added.

Fodder weapon

The NDA, which was at the receiving end over the CAG report that pointed out several financial irregularities, turned the heat on the RJD by evoking the fodder scam.

The RJD MLAs stormed into the well of the House during question hour and raising slogans demanding CBI probe into the CAG report. But BJP MLA Vinod Naryan Jha raised a question of 525 files missing from the registration office, which was related to property registration between 1990 and 2006. “During this period, those involved in the fodder scam purchased huge properties in Patna and adjoining areas. The missing files were detected when Patna High Court asked the CBI about certain documents,” Jha said.

Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said that the files had been sent to the circle officers since it was suspected that the property costs were under-priced.