The Bihar Assembly on Saturday witnessed pandemonium after Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav urged the Speaker Vijay Sinha to enable an adjournment motion for discussing Revenue and Land Reforms Minister Ram Surat Rai’s alleged “involvement” in an illicit liquor business in dry Bihar. Mr. Rai, a Minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the ruling National Democratic Alliance regime, challenged Mr. Yadav to prove his charges in two days or apologise for the allegation.
However, when the Speaker turned down Mr. Yadav’s demand for an adjournment motion, the opposition mahagathbandhan leaders staged walk out amid slogan shouting. They demanded that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar sack the Minister immediately. It was observed that members of the ruling NDA partner Janata Dal-United (JD-U) did not come out in support of the BJP members.
Later, Mr. Yadav, who heads the Rashtriya Janata Dal, along with other mahagathbandhan leaders, marched to the Raj Bhavan and demanded that Governor Phagu Chauhan dismiss the government for “muzzling the Opposition’s voice”.
As soon as the proceedings in the House began, Mr. Yadav rose from his chair to approach the Speaker for the adjournment motion. Under the new Bihar Excise and Prohibition Act, 2016, consumption, sale and trade of liquor in Bihar is banned. Earlier in the day, Mr. Yadav waved some pictures before mediapersons and alleged that Mr. Rai had been present at a function held in a school from where illegal liquor bottles were seized in November 2020. “How can the Minister wash his hands of a matter that involves a property and an institution with which he is involved?” asked Mr. Yadav.
In November 2020, a huge cache of illegal liquor was seized from a school building in Muzaffarpur, said to be named after the Minister’s father, Arjun Rai. Mr. Yadav said that Mr. Ram Surat Rai was named in the school’s document as its founder. However, it was his brother, who is also the manager of the school, who was named in the FIR, along with 12 others in the case.
Mr. Ram Surat Rai, BJP MLA from Aurai in Muzaffarpur district, later told mediapersons that his brother was one of the 13 persons named in FIR and “if he is guilty, he should be punished as per law”. “But how did I come to be involved in the issue? Our father divided ancestral property between his sons long back and I am in no way involved with the property. If Tejashwi Yadav fails to prove his allegations in the next two days he will have to apologise,” Mr. Rai said.
