Vidhan Parishad: SP stages dharna in the well twice

Chairman Kunwar Manvendra Singh directed the rejection of the adjournment motion. Protesting the rejection, all SP members expressed dissatisfaction and came to the well of the House, staging a dharna there

Samajwadi Party (SP) members led by Leader of Opposition Lal Bahadur Yadav on Tuesday staged a dharna in the well of the Vidhan Parishad here on Tuesday to protest against the chair for not being allowed to speak during the Zero Hour.

Samajwadi Party (SP) members led by Leader of Opposition Lal Bahadur Yadav on Tuesday staged a dharna in the well of the Vidhan Parishad here on Tuesday to protest against the chair for not being allowed to speak during the Zero Hour. (For Representation)

After the Question Hour ended at 12 noon and before Leader of the House Keshav Prasad Maurya presented the demands for supplementary grants for the financial year 2024-25, LoP Lal Bihari Yadav rose from his seat to make some point to which chairman Kunwar Manvendra Singh objected saying he could not speak without a prior notice and asked him to take his chair each time he tried to speak.

Enraged by this, Yadav along with other SP members trooped into the well and sat on the dharna there only in protest with the former emphasising the point that now he was the Leader of the Opposition and not merely an SP leader and the chair had to respect his position.

Yadav came back to his chair when the chairman made repeated requests that the convention had it that a Leader of the Opposition should not come to the well. Minister of state for horticulture Dinesh Pratap Singh said it was the first time when the Leader of Opposition himself sat on the dharna in the well. This, he said, was a wrong precedence.

Later, the chair allowed Yadav to make his point. Raising the question of propriety, he said many IAS and IPS officers ask members to reveal their names, parties and castes. He even gave a specific example of himself. The chairman directed the government to get the issued examined.

Later Lal Bihari Yadav, Mohammad Jasmir Ansari, Rajendra Chaudhary, Man Singh Yadav, and other SP members gave a notice under the Rule 105, regarding irregularities in the recruitment of primary, higher, and technical education teachers, and assistant professors, associate professors and professors in institutions like PGI, KGMU and Lohia.

Ashutosh Sinha, Man Singh Yadav and the Leader of Opposition Lal Bihari Yadav expressed their views on the acceptability of the notice.

The Leader of the House apprised the House of the facts. Chairman Kunwar Manvendra Singh directed the rejection of the adjournment motion. Protesting the rejection, all SP members expressed dissatisfaction and came to the well of the House, staging a dharna there.