Promising to eradicate mining mafia from the state, chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said there would be zero tolerance on illegal mining.

Nitish made this statement in the Assembly when Speaker Uday Narain Choudhary rejected an adjournment motion of the Leader of the Opposition, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, on the issue.

“The war against the mining mafia will go on and we will use our full strength to eradicate it. No political patronage will be provided to it,” Nitish said, recalling that even during his Seva Yatra visits to Rohtas district he had pointed towards the illegal mining going on in the areas.

“We are against issuing any new licence for mining. The existing licence-holders will be allowed to do the mining till their licence expired,” the chief minister said.

Appealing all the parties to raise voice against illegal mining, Nitish said he would welcome a special debate in the House on the issue.

Siddiqui claimed in the adjournment motion that criminals were indulging in rampant illegal mining in Rohtas with tacit support from politicians and officers. He maintained that the confidence level of the mining mafia was so high that they dared to open fire at Rohtas superintendent of police Manu Maharaj when he conducted a raid on their areas of operation.

Siddiqui said despite the seizure of huge volume of explosives, illegal mining was on. He said he feared a repeat of the Madhya Pradesh incident where an IPS officer was killed by the illegal mining mafia.

The Leader of the Opposition alleged that the mafia was getting political patronage.

The Rohtas police have registered cases against 16 persons, including former BJP president Gopal Narayan Singh and former MLA Pradeep Joshi, in connection with illegal mining in Rohtas.

The House witnessed a heated debate between parliamentary affairs minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav and Siddiqui over traditions being allegedly violated in the current session. Siddiqui wanted his rejected adjournment motion to be sent to the call attention committee. But Yadav refused, saying that the speaker had already given his ruling. Siddiqui insisted that the speaker was entitled to revert his decision.

Nitish said he had no objection if the House debated on the issue. The speaker ruled that he would hold a special debate on the issue in the current session.

There was another uproar when Benipatti MLA Vinod Narayan Jha pointed out that the estimate for the underpass in Patna’s Eco Park had been hiked from Rs 294 crore in the year 2010-11 to Rs 629 crore in the year 2011-12.