Cong MLAs meet Guv, seek Prez rule

Thirty-five Congress MLAs who were suspended from the Chhattisgarh Assembly on Thursday, met the Governor ESL Narasimhan seeking his recommendation for the imposition of President’s rule in the state. Ejaz Kaiser reports.

Thirty-five Congress MLAs who were suspended from the Chhattisgarh Assembly on Thursday, met the Governor ESL Narasimhan seeking his recommendation for the imposition of President’s rule in the state.

HT Image

The opposition members were suspended after they stormed into the well of the House seeking the resignation of the chief minister Dr Raman Singh on the issue of gory naxal attack that killed 31 cops including the superintendent of police at Rajnandgaon on July 12. The Congress MLAs continued to stall the proceedings of the assembly since July 20 when the monsoon session began.

The Congress legislators proceeded to the Rajbhawan immediately and submitted a four-page memorandum to the Governor demanding the President’s rule citing the ‘uncontrolled’ violence unleashed by the Maoist rebels and the ‘utter failure’ of the ruling BJP government to effectively
counter the stepped-up naxal attacks.

As soon as the House assembled for the Question Hour on Thursday, the opposition congress again demanded resignation from the chief minister for his alleged failure to frame any concrete strategy to tackle the rising naxal problem.

With the Congress members remaining adamant not allowing the proceedings of the House to continue, the House was first adjourned till 12 noon on Thursday when the Speaker Dharamlal Kaushik called the state ministers and opposition members for discussion to sort out the issue but the Speaker’s effort did not yield any result.

When the proceedings began after 12 p.m., the House again witnessed noisy altercations between the ruling and the opposition members. The 35 Congress MLAs shouting slogans entered the well of the House following which they were all suspended.

According to the Chhattisgarh Assembly proceeding rules, any member entering the well of the House gets automatically suspended and the suspension tenure is decided by the Speaker.

However, the suspension of the Congress members was revoked within half an hour and the Speaker invited them to participate in the house proceedings but the opposition decided to proceed to the Rajbhawan.

The Congress has strength of 38 in the 90-member house. Three members were absent on Thursday.

The House continued its proceedings and held discussion on the supplementary budget in the presence of two members of Bahujan Samaj Party
(BSP).