‘Speak up, why do you need your phone’ – In Bihar Assembly, Nitish Kumar lashes out at Jehanabad MLA over use of mobile

The MLA was raising concerns about the exploitation of ration shop owners by lower-level officials and demanding swift implementation of an online public distribution system by the state government.

In response, Minister for Food and Consumer Protection Leshi Singh said that the government was considering this and would implement it soon.

But Yadav’s act of referring to a mobile phone while speaking did not sit well with Nitish, who cut in while another Opposition leader, Manju Agarwal, was speaking. Turning to Speaker Nand Kishor Yadav, Kumar said: “Ae! Are pratibandhit hai. Aap bhooliye mat, yaad karaiye (It’s prohibited. Don’t forget, remind them).”

“Anyone who brings a mobile will be thrown out,” the CM said, urging the Speaker to implement the rule “quickly”.

He added jokingly, “If this continues, forget the next 10 years, Earth will be destroyed even before that.”

He then turned to the Jehanabad MLA, who was still holding the phone, and said, “Present your question differently. That’s nonsense. Why are you keeping it?”

His remarks drew chuckles from legislators on both sides.

Not everyone appeared amused, though, with RJD leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav taking to X to call the CM “anti-technology” and “anti-youth”.

“If an honourable member has to ask a supplementary question, he will have to ask it by looking at his mobile or tab, but the computer-illiterate Chief Minister of Bihar has a problem with that too. It is unfortunate that Bihar has got such a conservative and outdated Chief Minister who is anti-technology as well as anti-youth, students and women. Condemnable,” he wrote.

The CM also had a spat with RJD’s Rabri Devi inside the Bihar Legislative Council.

The argument broke out after Opposition leaders, including Rabri, blamed the Nitish-led NDA government for the worsening law and order situation in the state. “Leave it, what do you know,” Nitish told Rabri. “What were you? For what reason did you become the Chief Minister? You became one after your husband was suspended,” the CM said, referring to Lalu Yadav’s resignation following the fodder scam investigation in 1997.

He also claimed that it was only after his own government came to power in 2005 that much of the state’s development took place.