As soon as the assembly met for the day, former finance minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui drew the attention of Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary to an adjournment notice given by his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) over the NGO scam and urged him to take up the issue by suspending the Question Hour.
The Speaker said that the adjournment notice would be allowed at a proper time and urged the agitating members to allow the House to function.
RJD members then trooped to the well of the House and started raising slogans demanding resignation of the chief minister and the deputy chief minister.
The protesting MLAs claimed that pictures of Kumar and Modi were used at a function of NGO ‘Srijan’ in Bhagalpur.
The opposition alleged that government money was fraudulently transferred to bank accounts of the NGO by a well-oiled racket comprising government employees and bank officials.
The chief minister was not in the House at the time.
He has gone to Araria to take stock of the flood situation there.
As the opposition MLAs continued raising slogans, the Speaker adjourned the House till 2 pm.
As the assembly met after the recess, RJD members again raised the issue and insisted that the adjournment notice should be taken up first and created ruckus in the House forcing the speaker to adjourn the House for the day.
While RJD legislators were on their feet, those of its ally Congress did not join them and remained seated.
Congress Legislature Party leader Sadanand Singh, hailing from Bhagalpur district, gave a separate adjournment notice in the matter.
In the Legislative Council, the matter was raised by RJD members forcing adjournment of the House till 1 pm.
RJD leader Rabri Devi, while talking to reporters outside the Upper House, demanded resignation of the chief minister and his deputy in the case.
Reacting to the opposition demand, Sushil Modi said, “They should show documentary evidence in support of the charge against me or the CM. Merely shouting (slogans) by showing some photographs of some events showing our participation does not mean our involvement in the scam,” Modi told reporters.
“If leaders are prosecuted on the basis of photographs, RJD president Lalu Prasad would have to spend life in jail for 100 years as he has wonderful pictures in the company with Mohammad Shahabuddin and many a scamsters,” the senior BJP leader said.
On the RJD’s claim that the NGO scam was even bigger than the multi-crore fodder scam case in which Lalu Prasad was facing court cases, Modi, who was one of the petitioners in the fodder scam case in the Patna High Court, said, “The two cannot be compared.”
“In the fodder scam case, the kingpin of the scam, S B Sinha, was given several extensions in service by the RJD government at that time and Sinha was also made local guardian of one of his daughters studying in a Ranchi school at that time,” Modi said.
“The nexus between the kingpin and Lalu Prasad was not limited to mere photos but much deeper as it surfaced on the basis of clear-cut evidence in the CBI probe, ” he said.
On the NGO scam, Modi asked, “Money of health department was fraudulently withdrawn by the racket in November last year, can the then Health Minister Tej Pratap Yadav be held as an accused?”
Modi also pointed out that the the first hint of the NGO’s illegal activity had surfaced in 2002 and 2003 when the RJD was ruling Bihar.
On Lalu Prasad’s demand for a CBI probe into the NGO scam case under supervision of the Supreme Court, Modi, who is the Finance minister of Bihar, said, “If the court thinks so we have no problem.”
State police chief P K Thakur had yesterday said that investigators had so far detected Rs 870.88 crore in the scam, in which 18 accused were arrested so far.