Miss their voice

Vijay Deo Jha Ranchi

The Assembly Hall will not resonate with authoritative voice of those who commanded statistics and figures on their finger tips duringassembly debate. It is because some of them got defeated in the recently held State Assembly election while some of them moved to bigger arena:parliament.

Former assembly Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari, BJP fire brand Saryu Rai and Arjun Munda, former JD (U) leader Radhakrishna Kishore, former finance minister Stephen Marandi are not the part of the third Jharkhand State Assembly the session to which starts from tomorrow.

Both Namdhari and Munda got elected during the parliamentary elections from Palamu and Jamshedpur respectively while Rai, Kishore and Marandi became the victim of voters' backlash irrespective of their contribution in forcing three successive governments to be accountable. If the House will miss them it is because they spoke against their owngovernment.

For instance the BJP government was forced to abandon ambitious Bhagirathi Irrigation Projects involving initial seed money of Rs 10 crore after Kishore raised the issue of the drainage of public money on the name of this project on the floor of the House. Both Rai and Kishore were on the forefront to raise the issue of alleged irregularities in awarding contract to the Meinhardt Singapore Private Limited involving the minister of their own government Raghuwar Das.

In a newly elected House of 81 the first timer commands the majority after 61 sitting MLAs lost the election. "I will suggest them to at least know the assembly proceedings…attend assembly session and take part in the debate the job for which they have been elected," Namdhari wished them. The composition of the last assembly was a curious and baffling mixture of veteran and novice. Nevertheless, "fact remained a majority of MLAs had no knowledge of planned and non-planned expenditure and among them there was the tendency to escape the debate right from the first day of the session," Kishore recollected the fact.

In the last assembly there was a time when all most 98 per cent ordinance and bill tabled by the government passed without the Opposition brining any amendment to that. If the records of proceedings of the House are seen Kishore and Rai were on the forefront of brining maximum amendments to the bill while sitting in the Opposition. Nobody in the Opposition even cared for brining cut motion during the budget motion. "Rai took this initiative and I joined him in grilling the government by brining cut motion and forcing the treasury benchfor a full debate over the budget and the expenditure," Kishore said.

December 2008 budget session: The finance minister Marandi's repeated application of the kerchief to his brow during his 20-minute answer of supplementary questions over the budget asked by Namdhari, Arjun Munda, Rai and Kishore determined their role as the Opposition. His forehead was constantly dehydrating, his hands constantly reaching out for repair and re-hydration. And he was not able to explain as to how he would be able spend the rest 70 per cent of the budgetary allocation of more than Rs 2500 crore in three months before the end of the financial year.

"Ye chamatakar to sirf aap hi kar sakte hai mantriji," (only you can do this miracle minister). The man clad in white attire--Namdhari--had the last word over minister's white lie. Namdhari many called 'headmaster' was a monster among the ministers that coexisted with his saintly look till he remained the Speaker. Namdhari often encouraged the 'silent brigade' in the House to break their Maun Vrata (observance of silence). They included Saurabh Narayan Singh, Gopal Sharan Nath Shahdeo, Israel Ansari, Thomas Hansda, Kunti Singh etc who were the part of 'non-speakers club. There was foul mouth brigade to drag the debate down to the gutter.

Though missing, it is preserved in the proceedings that will soon be archived.