Two legislators injured in Kerala assembly scuffle
Leaders of the opposition in Kerala assembly walked out in protest over an adjournment motion on Wednesday which ended in a scuffle with security personnel outside speaker A N Shamseer’s office, leaving several people injured.
A protest by opposition legislators in Kerala assembly over an adjournment motion on Wednesday ended in a scuffle with security personnel outside speaker A N Shamseer’s office, leaving several people injured.
While Congress MLA Saneesh Joseph was admitted to the general hospital in Thiruvananthapuram after he collapsed in the chaos, Revolutionary Marxist Party legislator K K Rema sustained injuries on her hand. Rema alleged that CPI(M) legislator H Salam kicked her but the latter denied it.
Five watch and ward employees (also known as house marshals, who oversee the security of the state legislature and work under the control of the speaker and the secretary to the legislature) were also injured in the scuffle and admitted to the hospital.
The chaos began after speaker Shamseer, during the assembly session, denied permission for an adjournment motion by Congress’s Uma Thomas on an attack on a 16-year-old girl by three men in Thiruvananthapuram’s Attingal area last week. The teen was attacked after she resisted the men’s attempts to harass her.
Angry opposition members staged a walkout and marched towards the speaker’s office, seeking “impartial treatment” in the House.
As the watch and ward members tried to remove the protesting legislators, a scuffle broke out between the two sides. The watch and ward members were later joined by members of the ruling CPI(M).
“I was dragged by the watch and ward members. Some of them twisted my hands. Making use of the din, MLA H Salam kicked me and hurled verbal abuses. Ruling party members also let loose violence and it was a sad day in the legislative history of the state,” Rema said.
Joseph also alleged he was manhandled by the watch and ward staff and legislators of the ruling party.
Later, opposition leader V D Satheesan filed a complaint with the speaker.
“The government has lost its face after many complaints surfaced against it. Desperate, it is taking on opposition members. It is doing all dirty tricks to silence us. If we cannot raise serious issues in the assembly, where will we go,” he said.
Satheesan also alleged that chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan was using the speaker to stifle the opposition’s voice. The state Congress asked party workers to hold protest meetings against the attack on its legislators.
Tourism minister Mohammad Riyaz, who is also Vijayan’s son-in-law, accused the Opposition of disrupting the House by raising irrelevant issues.
“The behaviour of the opposition leader is not in consonance with the post he is holding,” he said.
The speaker said he will make a statement in the House on Thursday.
Political observers said the assembly had last witnessed such scenes in March 2015, when lawmakers of the then opposition Left Democratic Front prevented then finance minister K M Mani from presenting the budget, alleging his role in a bar bribery case.
“What happened in the assembly was unprecedented. Such incidents lower the dignity of law-makers,” political commentator Sunnykutty Abraham said.