Chandigarh, March 8
The Budget session of the Haryana Assembly will be sans fizz. The House today suspended virtually the entire Opposition for the remaining period of the Budget session, which is likely to continue till March 16. Only Kavita Jain, BJP MLA, escaped the axe as she was not present in the House today.
INLD and BJP MLAs will meet Governor Jagannath Pahadia tomorrow to protest against their suspension.
The suspension came after the House was adjourned thrice. The repeated adjournments did not pacify the INLD and BJP members who wanted that their adjournment motions on price rise must be taken up immediately. Even a meeting in the chamber of the Speaker remained unfruitful. They did not allow Kuldeep Sharma of the Congress to move a motion of thanks to the Governor for his Address to the House after question hour.
Sharma said he was disappointed at the conduct of the Opposition, which, he had hoped, would listen to his maiden speech in the House. Once he even taunted the INLD leaders for allowing the BJP to take the lead over them.
Anil Vij, leader of the BJP legislature party, wanted to know from Speaker HS Chatha the fate of the adjournment motion moved by him under Rule 66 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Haryana Assembly. Chatha told him that it had been converted into a call attention motion as he had done with a similar motion moved by the INLD on the first day of the session on March 5.
Protesting that the Speaker had no power to do so, Vij, supported by his colleagues and INLD members, moved into the well of the House and continued to protest. Chatha first adjourned the House for 30 minutes at 3.15 pm, then for about 20 minutes at 3.53 pm and again for 30 minutes at 4.15 pm and met INLD and BJP representatives in his chamber. When the House reassembled and the Opposition continued to press its point, Chatha read out a statement elaborating how he had tried for orderly conduct of the House and how the Opposition had “wasted public exchequer” by its conduct.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Surjewala immediately moved a motion for the suspension of the Opposition members.
