RJD to hold protests against Bihar govt's sand mining policy, calls for state shutdown on 21 December

Patna: The main opposition party in Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), on Tuesday deferred the statewide bandh it had called to protest against the sand mining policy of the Nitish Kumar government to 21 December. [caption id=“attachment_4253825” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  RJD supporters shout slogans during a protest march against the Bihar government’s new sand and stone chips sale policy in Patna on Monday. PTI[/caption] No reason was, however, cited for deferring the bandh. On Monday, former deputy chief minister and the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, had announced that the bandh would be observed on 18 December. Incidentally, the counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls will be taken up on 18 December. Yadav had announced the date of the bandh at a march taken out by the RJD yesterday to protest the sand mining policy of the NDA government in the state. The Lalu Prasad-led RJD has been blaming the sand mining policy of the government for a “slump” in construction activities and the resultant loss of jobs among the workers, who were migrating to the other states in search of work. The RJD march on Monday was dismissed by Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who had alleged that Prasad’s party was trying to “protect the sand mafia as it funded the party”.