Bihar assembly building completes 100 yrs;Nitish tells ruling members they are 'sevaks' and not 'maalik'

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sundayhighlighted the glorious past of the Bihar LegislativeAssembly on completion of 100 years of its building and toldthose sitting in the government not to confuse themselves asthe ''masters'' as in the democracy people are the ''maalik'' andwe are their ''sevaks'' (servants).

Inaugurating the year-long centenary celebrations of thesprawling assembly building, Kumar stressed on healthy debateand discussions in the house to serve the masses together in amore better manner.

Kumar said he was in favour of holding longer session of thestate legislature to give ample time to every member to askquestions and raise issues of their areas.

It was on this day when the first session of the Bihar andOdisha provincial legislative council was formally inauguratedby Lord Satyendra Prassana Sinha,Governor of the erstwhileprovince.

Though the building was ready by the end of 1920, theinaugural session was held on February 7, 1921.

Besides Kumar, Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha,Legislative Council Acting Chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh,Deputy Chief Ministers- Tarkishore Prasad and Renu Devi-former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, Parliamentary Affairs ministerVijay Kumar Choudhary and a host of ministers, legislators andother dignitaries attended the inaugural function.

''We should not confuse ourselves as masters as in democracyjanata (people) are the maalik while legislators are theirrepresentatives and people sitting in the government are their'sevaks' (servants),'' Kumar said in his speech.

''We normally have longer Budget session which runs for amonth. But, other sessions (monsoon and winter) run for 7,8 or10 days.

''If you wish, we will extend it further so that members,who are also considered part of the government, get a fairamount of time to express their views and opinion on variousmatters besides raising issues of their areas as it is theirduty to do so,'' Kumar said.

Kumar said this while responding to several previousspeakers who expressed their grievance on the session beingshort one which denied them opportunity to put their views orraise issues.

He, however, said that so far as duration of the sessionis concerned, it has to be collectively decided by theAssembly Speaker and the Council Chairman.

The CM assured the members that the government wouldcertainly accept their suggestions/views if they were''genuine'' and ''correct''.

Stating that he was quite hopeful of getting over with theCOVID pandemic in the next few months, Kumar said that thenumber of coronavirus cases has been quite low in Bihar andthe government has done a plenty of work including carryingout inoculation drive.

The manner in which coronavirus spread and continued forquite longer period of time affecting huge number of people,it seems that it did not come in a ''natural way'' rather itappears to be some kind of ''mischief'' or may have come fromdifferent parts of the world especially in China wheredifferent types of ''artificial work'' take place, the CM said.

''There are chances that such things could recur again infuture. In these circumstances, we need to remain alert andcautious,'' Kumar said.

Kumar thanked Assembly Speaker for organising centenaryyear function and asked him to organise such programmes infuture too on different topics/subjects and their experts asparticipants besides the members of the legislature.

Speaking on the occasion, the Speaker said the faith ofdemocracy lies in legislature.

''We should create an atmosphere that would deepenpeople's faith in state legislature....Opposition'scooperation is needed for smooth functioning of the assembly,''the Speaker said.

Other leaders who spoke on the occasion included RJD'sAwadh Bihari Choudhary, Congress' Vijay Shankar Dubey and AjitSharma, CPI(ML)'s Mahboob Alam, AIMIM's Akhtarul Iman, CPI'sRam Ratan Singh and CPI(M)'s Ajay Kumar.

The function saw an unpleasant moment when Alam raisedobjection to display of BJP flags at the roundabout near theentrance of the legislative premises inviting jeer from thesaffron party legislators.