Governor Heckled during Assembly Speech
Patna: February 22, 2008
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Governor Heckled during Assembly Speech
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Photo by Shashi Uttam |
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The opening day of the Budget Session at Bihar Assembly on Friday, as anticipated, commenced amidst slogans shouting and allegations that disrupted the opening speech of the Governor who, under the condition, tried to remain calm and focused on his speech that was supposed to have a feel-good overtone to it.
No sooner than Governor R. S. Gavai started his speech talking about the future of Bihar, Communist Party of India (ML) legislator Arun Singh started to utter his own speech with clear intention to disrupt the Governor from delivering his address.
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Mundrika Singh Yadav also started to shout demanding expulsion of Raj and Bal Thackeray from the country and security for Biharis living in Maharashtra and elsewhere.
The noise created by the Opposition leaders became so loud that the words of the Governor were hardly heard throughout the 19 pages of prepared speech that he was reading from.
A gracious Governor later told the reporters that he appreciated the feelings of the Opposition and did not take their protest personally.
Expressing his anguish over the plights of Biharis in Maharashtra, the Governor said he regretted what was going on in his own state and appealed to the people of Bihar and Maharashtra to think of the nation as one and not in terms of 'my state-your state'.
"95% of Maharashtrians are good, decent people who believe in brotherhood with people from other states. We are Indians first and Indian last," the Governor said.
Amidst the pandemonium, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, while presenting the 2007-2008 state budget, said that Bihar was poised for an unprecedented economic growth saying the state's GDP rose to 16% in last fiscal year from -4.8% in 2001-02 with Patna, Begusarai, and Munger registering the highest growth in Bihar.
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