No breakdown of law and order in Bihar, says Gupta

In the Lok Sabha, Speaker P A Sangma denied permission to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samta party to move an addjournment motion seeking a debate on the law and order situation in that state. The Rajya Sabha saw noisy scenes, a half-an-hour adjournment and a BJP walk-out.

Though Gupta made a tongue-in-cheek remark in the Lok Sabha about the possibility of something happening in the future which may justify the Opposition’s claim about a breakdown, he felt the limit had not yet been crossed.

He admitted that there had been disturbances, including group clashes. But the incidents did not add up to a breakdown of law and order, and much less so of the Constitution, he declared.

Of course, Gupta was speaking as a Government functionary. And it is a different matter that the Left Front has been gunning for Bihar chief minister’s scalp since long.

While rejecting the Opposition plea to move an adjourjnment motion, the Speaker urged the Centre to investigate into the reported attack on a BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy during Saturday’s bandh. Indrajit Gupta received flak from the Opposition when he appeared to wonder how Rudi escaped unhurt when 17 shots were fired at him.

“Did you want him to be killed,” Murli Manohar Joshi (BJP) asked. Though Gupta later assured that he found the attack “shocking,” Rudy declared him “a heartless Home Minister.” The MP said that he escaped injury because of God and the good wisehes of his friends and “not because of your security.”

Seeking to move the adjournment motion, Jaswant Singh (BJP) maintained there was a “total breakdown of law and order” in Bihar.

Congress and Janata Dal members argued that the House could not discuss the law and order situation in Bihar under Lok Sabha rules, as it was a State subject. Jaswant Singh and his Samta colleague George Fernandes however argued that the matter concerned the Centre.

They said the CBI counsels were being prevented from entering the Patna High Court, CBI officials investigating the fodder scam were being threatened, and the official machinery was conniving in attacks on Opposition MPs. Jaswant Singh said there was a Constitutional breakdown, not just a breakdown of law and order. He said the “highest functionary of the state” had threatened to “demolish” Delhi. The reference was to Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, though he was never named.

Singh said the United front Government at the Centre was “captive” to the Bihar Government.

“This is a subsidiary Government to the government of Bihar. It is being held to ransom by one particular person in the state of Bihar.” In his turn, the Home Minister said the functioning of the Patna High Court had not been disrupted despite the agitations outside. And refering to reported threats from the “highest authority” in Bihar, the minister said nothing had `materialised.

” No directives from the Centre had been defied, despite reported statements. The work of the Central investigation agencies had not been impeded, he said.

In the Rajya Sabha, BJP members were on their feet, shouting as soon as Question Hour ended. Leader of the Opposition Sikander Bakht demanded the dismissal of the Laloo Yadav government. “There is no law and order in Bihar. We don’t believe in Article 356; but in this case, there is no option but to invoke it and impose President’s rule in Bihar,” he said.