Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Leader of the Opposition Tejashwi Yadav stooped to their absolute low on the House floor on Friday, when they made personal attacks against each other, punctuated with unparliamentary words. It is to be noted that both the leaders had also been attacking each other in the run-up to the Bihar Legislative Assembly Election 2020 and their campaigns had been smeared by slander by their respective oppositions.
Nitish and Tejashwi were participating in a debate on the vote of thanks to the governor for his address to the joint session of legislature.
Tejashwi accused Nitish Kumar of being an accused in a murder case, sentenced by a court on charges of plagiarism. He also commented Nitish Kumar's family life — alleging that the chief minister did not have a second child since he was "apprehensive" of giving birth to a daughter.
He also further levelled additional personal chatges against the chief minister.
On hearing the personal allegations levied against him, Nitish reacted out of turn and became furious. The chief minister of Bihar said that he had only tolerated Tejashwi so far since the latter was the son of an 'old friend' (Lalu Prasad Yadav) who he considered akin to a 'brother'.
The Chief Minister was visibly angry and addressed the Leader of the Opposition as 'Tum' (an informal "you" in Hindi) throughout his speech.
He also engaged in personal slander against Tejashwi and said that the latter was a 'charge-sheeted' man. Despite being so, Nitish said that he had made Tejashwi his deputy chief minister once.
The entire house was stunned when the chief minister and the leader of the opposition exchanged unparliamentary words, including 'chor' (thief) and 'beimaan' (traitor).
Veteran legislators claimed that for their first time, they were witnessing an aggressive posture from the chief minister on the floor of the Bihar assembly. The House was later adjourned sine die.
