Opposition members stage noisy walkout from Bihar Assembly

Patna, Mar 25 (UNI) The entire Opposition in the Bihar Assembly today staged a noisy walkout from the House protesting the government's alleged disinformation campaign regarding distribution of land among landless farmers.

After rushing into the well shouting anti-government slogans, the CPI(M) members first walked out of the House alleging that the reply of state Revenue and Land Reform Minister Ram Nath Thakur after three-hour long discussions on his department's budgetory demand was 'full of mistakes and deft of any positive approach'.

Soon after alleging that Mr Thakur was deliberately resorted to a disinformation campaign and was providing 'inflated' figures to the members to highlight his achievements, all other members of the Opposition including those of the RJD, LJP and the CPI also walked out of the House as a mark of protest, shouting anti-government slogans.

Later, the House unanimously passed the Rs 3,77,48,41,000 budgetory demand of the department through voice votes.

Earlier, replying to the discussions in which more than 45 members participated, Mr Thakur, also the son of former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur, said following huge irregularities in the land reform process in the state for the past many years, the Nitish Kumar government had set up a high power land Reform committe in June 2006 which had submitted its report in October in the same year.

Since the submission of the report the government had disbursed a total amount of Rs 67.44 crores among the farming community and had so far distributed 1634 acre of land among 533 landless farmers families, the minister informed the House.

Regarding mutation of land, Mr Thakur said, till November 24 last year the process had been completed in 9854.53 acre of khas land compared to only about 1555 acre till December 2005.

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