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| War of words hottens up between members on regional lines | | Regional split comes to fore in Assembly | | Kunal Shrivatsa
JAMMU, Mar 19: Even as the ongoing Budget session is progressing amid People’s Democratic Party's (PDP) boycott of the entire session, the proceedings of the Lower House of the State Legislature continue to witness tumultuous scenes including heated arguments and hullabaloo over one issue or the other particularly the war of words between Kashmir and Jammu based legislators on regional lines.
The manner in which members of the Lower House representing two major regions of Kashmir and Jammu have conducted themselves in the Assembly, it is clearly a sign of virtual divide over regional lines among the legislators as they engaged themselves in bitter quarrels over the 'interests' of Dogra heartland and Valley for the last few days.
Today, the regional split again came to fore when at the first instance JKNPP MLA Balwant Singh Mankotia and Independent legislator Er Rashid locked into a bitter verbal duel when the latter raised the issue of non-acceptance of his resolution on bringing back Guru Afzal's mortal remains.
JKNPP MLA Mankotia while raising objections to Er Rashid's persistent 'anti-national' stance in the House said that no action was taken against him.
Soon, the BJP MLAs and lone JSM legislator as well some Congress MLAs including G M Saroori, Mohammad Sharief Niaz and Ashok Kumar also jumped into the fray and condemned the behavior of Er Rashid.
In the heat of arguments, the Jammu based opposition members demanded from Chair to restrain Er Rashid from passing anti-India remarks and when the opposition did not get a favourable response from the Speaker, they got further agitated and trooped into the Well of the House where Mankotia pushed Er Rashid.
The scene became practically 'Jammu Vs Kashmir' when Minister for PHE Sham Lal Sharma, and Minister for Housing Raman Bhalla openly expressed their resentments over Er Rashid's conduct in the House in open soon after Speaker adjourned the House.
Both the Jammu based Congress Ministers were countered by National Conference members including Mohammad Akbar Lone, Nazir Gurezi and Sajjad Kichloo who shouted back at Sham and Bhalla.
The divide among Jammu and Valley based legislators was quite evident as National Conference members including Surjit Singh Slathia and Bimla Luthra could not desist themselves from expressing their concern over Er Rashid's behavior.
Both the NC members joined their other Jammu counterparts and took strong exception to Er. Rashid's behaviour and his statements made in the Well of the House.
Yesterday, the Jammu based opposition legislators had also created uproar in the Assembly and this time they got agitated over 'regional imbalance'.
Not satisfied with the reply from the Government over funds sanctioned for new model villages in the State, the JKNPP MLAs had created ruckus in the House.
The JKNPP members got infuriated after Government replied that in the past three years, 12 model villages were sanctioned in Kashmir division while only two in Jammu region following which the JKNPP MLAs created noisy scenes in the House alleging ' regional discrimination'.
Later, they were also joined by the BJP and JSM legislators who later staged a walkout alleging that the government is not developing the far flung areas in Jammu region and only focusing Kashmir division.
On March 16, the ruckus created by the Jammu based legislators to bring a resolution to oppose a resolution passed by Pakistan National Assembly condemning execution of Afzal Guru was the beginning of the trend as on one hand the members belonging to Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and Jammu State Morcha (JSM) persisted on adopting a resolution while on the other the National Conference vociferously countered the demand which resulted into arguments and counter arguments .
The Jammu based legislators lost no opportunity to grill the State Government over Pakistan Assembly resolution in the absence of PDP.
They raised anti-Pakistan slogans in the House amid noisy scenes including throwing of mike and shouting loud while standing atop benches. |
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