Supaul (Bihar): Former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra was given a state funeral. However, at the cremation at his ancestral village in Supaul district on Wednesday (August 21) all the 22 rifles failed to fire a single shot.

The Bihar policemen tried to give a gun salute to Mishra. But when the rifles failed to fire a shot, the cops were seen testing if their weapons had life by pulling the trigger but in vain.

Thus mortal remains of Mishra were consigned to flames with full state honours sans the gun salute.

Responding to this, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA from Pipra Yaduwansh Kumar Yadav, who was also present at the funeral, said that the incident was an insult to the former Bihar chief minister and demanded an investigation into the matter, reported ANI.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar flew down from the state capital to this north Bihar district to attend the funeral where he was joined by his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, Assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary, senior RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, local JD(U) MP Dileshwar Kamait and BJP MP from neighboring Darbhanga, Gopalji Thakur, among others.

Mishra, 82, a three-time chief minister, who was the last leader of the Congress to have held the post, and later a member of the PV Narasimha Rao Cabinet at the Centre, had passed away in the national capital on Monday after a prolonged bout with cancer.

Thousands of supporters and admirers had also thronged the cremation ground at the Balua Ghat village of Mishra who was one of the most powerful leaders in the state of his time. 

A Congressman who learnt his ropes from elder brother Laliteshwar Narayan Mishra, Jagannath Mishra burst on the political scene of Bihar when he was handpicked for leading the state at a tender age of 38 years by Indira Gandhi, months after he lost his sibling, then the railway minister in a bomb attack at Samastipur.

(With inputs from PTI)