Leader of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the state government over the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the poll-bound state, alleging that Bihar is being “remote-controlled” from Delhi.
Yadav claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are directly giving orders to carry out the voter roll revision through the Election Commission.
“The way the state is being run from Delhi on remote control, with either the Prime Minister or Amit Shah, they are the ones giving the orders.
The SIR is being done on their orders by the Election Commission. Before, it used to happen that voters chose the government, now it is flipped — the government is choosing their voters,” the Bihar LoP said at a press conference following the assembly session.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader also repeated his allegations that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is no longer fit to govern, claiming that the CM has no idea about proceedings inside the Assembly.
“We also met with the Speaker, and we requested, as the CM had got up when I was speaking, what he wanted. Everyone in the assembly knows what the discussion is about,t but the CM does not know — he says whatever he wants. CM is not in a state to run the government anymore,” Yadav alleged.
Earlier in the day, Yadav addressed the Bihar Assembly, accusing ministers and Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sinha of lowering the dignity of the House by interrupting his speech. He said the assembly Speaker, Nand Kishore Yadav, had to reprimand them for their conduct.
“It was very painful to see that people in government, sitting in big positions like ministers or Deputy CM, doing such ‘halki rajneeti’ (light politics) does not suit them. The Speaker had said he would give everyone a chance to speak, so it is common sense that the ruling party will get their chance too, but some people do ‘halki rajneeti’, they lower the dignity of the House. If you would see, the Speaker reprimanded the Deputy CM and ministers as well,” the Bihar LoP said.
Training his guns at Deputy CM Vijay Sinha, Yadav added, “We were speaking with permission, but the comment comes from Deputy CM Vijay Sinha, who does not know anything but likes to talk nonsense. He only knows how to stay in the limelight, how to be in front of the camera — only this.”
“If the Opposition leader will not speak in the Assembly, then who will? If the Opposition will not ask questions, who else will?” Yadav asked, defending his sharp interventions inside the House.
Responding to allegations that the voter list in Bihar contains names of foreign nationals from Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, Yadav dismissed the claims and blamed the ruling Janata Dal (United) and BJP for any such irregularities.
“These people said someone is Bangladeshi, a fake voter is from Nepal, and he is from Myanmar. When we showed the evidence and the affidavit given to the Supreme Court by the Election Commission, which runs over seven hundred pages, the EC did not mention any foreign nationals as voters. When there is no mention, then how can such a statement be made by an important person? The BJP has several thousand BLAs — no one has ever before raised the issue of fake votes,” he said.
“If this exists, too, then who has been in power since 2005? Who has been the PM for the last 11 years? This means your government would only have given the documents. So when they do not have answers, they just create chaos in the House and stop it,” he added.
During his address in the Assembly, Yadav also criticised the requirement of 11 documents for voter registration under the SIR, saying this places an undue burden on the poor.
“I asked for only four things. The voter list was first published in February, and after the Lok Sabha elections, a revision could have been done. Instead, they are rushing everything now. They are demanding 11 documents, which poor people do not have. Where will poor people get so many documents in just 25 days?” Yadav asked, highlighting the practical challenges faced by economically weaker citizens.
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