Opposition in Bihar to hold week-long stir against farm laws: Tejashwi Yadav

The opposition Grand Alliance in Bihar would launch an agitation against the farm laws shortly which would conclude with a state-wide human chain a week later, the coalition's leader Tejashwi Yadav announced here on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference soon after a meeting of MLAs of his RJD where the programme was finalised, Yadav said, the Kisan Jagriti Saptaah (farmers awareness week) will commence on January 24, the birth anniversary of the former chief minister and OBC stalwart Karpoori Thakur.

"All leaders of the five-party Grand Alliance will be hitting the streets as part of the stir against the Centre's agriculture policy which could reduce our farmers to the status of beggars", said Yadav adding that the human chain will be held on January 30, coinciding with the martyrdom day of Mahatma Gandhi.

He declared that the stir would be as much against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre as the Nitish Kumar government in the state, "which seems to have set a precedent by having abolished APMCs a decade ago."

Farmers' protest news updates on DH

Yadav also slammed the chief minister's party, the JD(U), for having voted in favour of the farm bills inside Parliament but "hoodwinking the people of the state by speaking in a forked tongue".

The RJD leader said, "We were wrongfully defeated in the assembly elections", reiterating his often repeated allegation of manipulation of results with the help of pliant officials.

"Nonetheless, during the campaign, we were showered with affection of the people as we approached them with the promise of a government that would listen to their concerns and act accordingly. So we have the responsibility of taking this government to task", the former Deputy CM asserted.

Yadav also claimed that the government, which had initially intended to curtail the budget session of the assembly, decided to allow the House to assemble for a full month "following our warning that we will boycott the proceedings and gherao the chief minister's residence".

Yadav had issued the threat recently, after a meeting with Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha who had sought the views of political parties on shortening the session in view of the ongoing vaccination for Covid-19.