The monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly on Monday was disrupted following ruckus created by the Opposition over allotment of a room for offering namaz in the House.

BJP lawmakers chanted slogans of Jai Shri Ram and Har Har Mahadev to protest over the room allotment.

Amid the constant disruptions, state finance minister Rameshwar Oraon tabled the first supplementary budget of Rs 4,684.93 crore for fiscal 2021-22. Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahato adjourned the House at around 3.00pm on Monday to 11am on Tuesday.

A maximum allocation of Rs 1,786.05 crore has been made to the energy department followed by Rs 1,000.30 crore for the mines and geology department while home jail and disaster management department Rs 337.32 crore, rural development department Rs 284.34 crore and Rs 279.29 crore to the health department.

Earlier, all the BJP MLAs performed bhajan kirtan outside the Assembly with traditional musical instruments like dhol and jhal and sung religious songs. They chanted slogans of Jai Shri Ram to protest the decision of the Speaker for allocating the room for performing namaz inside the Assembly.

Later, as soon as the proceedings of the House commenced the BJP MLAs welcomed speakers with chants of Jai Shri Ram and Har Har Mahadev. As the MLAs were not relenting to repeated requests the Speaker was forced to adjourn the house from 11.30am to 12.45pm in the first half of the day.

After the House was reassembled, the MLAs continued with their slogans and demanded that the recruitment policy excluding Hindi, Sanskrit and English for Classes III and IV vacancies is cancelled.

After the lunch break, the BJP MLAs once again stormed in the well of the House and indulged in slogan shouting. MLAs Randhir Singh, Bhanu Pratap Sahi and Kishun Das stood on the reporting chair and shouted slogans.

On the other hand, BJP MLA Manish Jaiswal sat on the reporting table and kept tapping with his hands while MLAs Raj Sinha and Amar Bauri sat on the Secretary’s table. The act of the MLAs drew sharp reactions from the Speaker who said that the chair was not weak and the acts of the MLAs were against the parliamentary norms.

During the question hours, Congress MLA Amba Prasad and Alamgir Alam raised the issue of inflation and the need for change in recruitment policies. However, the BJP MLAs continued to disrupt the proceedings by dancing in the well of the House forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House till Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly, chief minister Hemant Soren termed the ruckus as unfortunate.

“They could have put their question during the question hours and we would have answered. But it seems they were keen on disturbing. It is unfortunate that Opposition parties instead of raising issues on government policies is causing disruption,” said Soren.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP and state president Deepak Prakash addressing party workers at Dumka warned that if the government does not withdraw the order of allotment of a room in the Assembly building for offering namaz, BJP workers would stage a dharna outside the House on September 8.

The monsoon session is scheduled till September 9.

BJP national vice-president and former chief minister Raghubar Das has also written to the Speaker on Monday to withdraw the decision of allotment of the hall for offering namaz within 48 hours or else he would sit on a dharna in front of the Assembly.