Bashir Assad/
Abodh Sharma
JAMMU, Feb 12: Despite heavy posse of Marshalls to thwart any attempt by the Opposition MLAs to repeat their showdown of the previous day, it was complete mayhem in the J&K legislative assembly for the third consecutive day today.
Legislators of PDP, BJP, NPP and JSM again disrupted the proceedings of the house in the ensuing budget session of the state legislature over alleged injustice to their constituencies in creation of new administrative units.
Carrying placards depicting demands for inclusion of various areas in the list, recently approved by the state Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, PDP members trooped into the well of the House, raising slogans like 'We want justice'.
However, they were surrounded by the watch and ward staff who struggled hard to stop them from climbing on the table in the well, resulting in a scuffle for over an hour till the Question Hour was over.
The PDP members tore files of replies to their questions and threw them into the well of the House, while some others stood atop opposition benches resorting to anti-government slogans.
Situation took an ugly turn when PDP legislator Nizamuddin Bhat raised slogan, Hum Kya Chahtie which was reverted by rest of the PDP legislators with "Azadi'. Soon BJP and NPP echoed Vandey mataram, Bharat Mata ki jai'
Threatening to suspend five PDP members viz, Sayed Bashir Ahmad, Sayed Basharat Bukhari, Javed Mustafa Mir, Choudhery Zulfkar and Abdul Haq Khan, if they did not desist from their behavior, Speaker Mubarak Gul nevertheless continued the proceedings of the House and the Question Hour amidst the din. However, the threatening further furiated the protesting legislators resulting in verbal dual between NC Legislator and PDP MLA, Sayed Bashir Ahmad on one hand and on the other hand the agitating MLAs tried to break the cordon of the watch and ward personnel to reach to advance towards Speaker.
Gul repeatedly appealed to the members to observe calm, saying the opposition members could raise their issues after the Question Hour.
However, BJP members, who were pressing for a reply from the government, staged a walkout from the House, followed by PDP MLAs. Earlier BJP state president Jugal Kishore Sharma said, "We wanted an answer and assurance from the government that our left out and ignored areas would be accommodated in the list of new administrative units. The government should do justice with the people who have been staging protests in various areas over the demand.
"The government has ignored our protests and there was no response from them," he told reporters.
Later, PDP's Mehbooba Mufti told reporters nobody is listening to them from the government and the only option left was to request the Governor's intervention. |
