Peace brokered between JD(U),BJP; Nitish Kumar returns to House

PATNA: A day after JD(U) and BJP clashed in the Upper House of the Bihar Assembly, peace was restored in the House today following the Chairman giving a clean chit to former Chief Minister Nitish Kumar accused of instigating the scuffle and the leader of opposition expressing regret about the episode.

An unanimous resolution was also passed requesting Kumar to come back to the House.

As the House assembled for the day at 11 am, Chairman Awdesh Narayan Singh expressed pain over yesterday's clash and said, "I saw it with my own eyes and the TV footage also makes it clear that Nitish Kumar did not instigate anybody to pick fight...he rather worked hard to bring peace among warring members."

Leader of Opposition Sushil Kumar Modi, who had blamed Nitish Kumar for "instigating" JD(U) legislator Sanjay Singh to make "unsavoury" comments against him and pick up a fight expressed "regret" for the episode.

Modi said, "I express regret for yesterday's incident and say sorry if any BJP members did anything wrong."

"I respect Kumar from the core of my heart and request him to return to the House," the senior BJP leader said.

"I have personal and political association with Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad and Ramvilas Paswan for 40 years and have learnt a lot from Kumar as Deputy Chief Minister during over 7 year NDA rule," Modi said.

Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi said he considered Nitish Kumar as his "icon" and "any unruly behaviour can never be expected from him."

JD(U) member Neeraj Kumar and BJP Legislator Rajneesh Kumar, both of whom had given separate notices seeking suspension of some members of rival parties, withdrew their resolution.

Accepting the Chief Minister's request that the House pass an unanimous resolution requesting Nitish Kumar to return to the House, the Chairman accepted it.

Following this, Nitish Kumar came to attend the proceeding of the House after half-an-hour and sat throughout the Question hour session.