The lathi-wielding constable’s plea was that had Singh been an MLC he would have come in one of those big cars and not on a rickshaw. Not only that. The policeman ordered the rickshaw-puller and the MLC to leave the place as the chief minister’s carcade was coming.

The situation would have turned unpleasant had some of the employees of the Council not recognised Singh, who has been a member of the Upper House for the past 20 years. They intervened to allow the rickshaw to take the MLC to the portico of the Council.

Going to assembly on a rickshaw, and even bus, was a common practice for the law-makers of Bihar till 1970s. However, with the increase in money and muscle-power rose the number of legislators with car. However, till the year 2000 (now late) Mahendra Singh, the CPI ML MLA from Bagodar (now in Jharkhand) was the lone legislator without car. After the bifurcation of the state he became the MLA of Jharkhand and was later killed.

Even in the current assembly there were a couple of MLAs who were without their own car for quite sometimes. RJD MLA from Kishanganj Akhtar-ul-Iman was one of those. Even today one of the MLAs of the state assembly comes to attend the session on bicycle.

Singh said that this often happens at the time of the start of the session. This is the question of mindset and nothing else, he told newsmen. He said that he had always used the rickshaw as a mode of transport and that it was perfectly legal to take it to the portico of the House.

When the chief minister Nitish Kumar came to know about the matter he suggested to the concerned authorities to keep cars at the gates of the state legislature building so that such MLAs can be driven to the portico on it. But then would men like Basudev Singh love to go on car or will they simply walk down to the portico, if at all stopped.

Comment

comments...