Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar apologised in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday for his controversial remarks about educated women and fertility rate made in the House a day ago, which had prompted the BJP to seek his resignation.

Nitish stood up from his seat and said: “I take back my words if anybody has been hurt and censure myself. I express regret. If anybody has been pained by a single word of mine, I, your chief minister, should be ashamed. I am not only feeling ashamed but am also expressing remorse. I take back everything. I am always in favour of women. We have done so much work for them.”

The BJP MLAs, led by the leader of the Opposition Vijay Kumar Sinha, kept up the commotion, shouting, thumping their desks, lifting and waving chairs in the air, even as the Bihar chief minister apologised.

The chief minister asserted the government has decided to increase the reservation threshold to help the extremely backward castes (EBC) and other backward castes (OBC) women progress further, and even the BJP had agreed on this. “You all concurred yesterday but must have got orders to criticise me. So if it is for any of my statements, I take it back. I welcome anybody who censures me. But I have done a big thing (increasing the reservation to 75 per cent) for the state. We are bringing a law for it,” Nitish said.

Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary interjected and applauded Nitish over his apology. “No chief minister has ever criticised himself in such a manner,” the Speaker said and adjourned the session till post lunch.

Earlier in the day, Nitish also apologised in front of mediapersons on the Assembly campus, asking the people to see his work in its entirety instead of focusing on one mistake.