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| Mehbooba pulls down mikes, bulldozes Speaker | | PDP MLAs marshaled out on creating ruckus in House over Shopian | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, July 27: On day one of the month-long Budget session in Legislative Assembly today, opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members were marshaled out after they created pandemonium in the House over the May 29/30 rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian and their leader, Mehbooba Mufti, shouted on the Speaker and pulled down mikes from his desk. Even as the PDP MLAs staged a sit-in on the outer entrance of the Civil Secretariat and Assembly Complex, House proceeded with the scheduled business of paying obituary to some former legislators who had passed away in recent past.
Immediately after the Speaker, Mohammad Akbar Lone, took his position and declared the Business open, senior BJP leaders, Prof Chaman Lal Gupta and Ashok Khajuria, got up to raise the issue of their frisking by security staff at the Secretariat entrance. They shouted that pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami people were being allowed to enter with their own vehicles but the mainstream legislators traveling in officially allotted cars were being subjected to intense checking and physical frisking. “This is an insult not only to us but also to this august House”, they shouted.
Even as Speaker Lone pacified the BJP duo with an assurance that he would sort out their problem with the security staff, ruling National Conference MLA from Handwara, Choudhry Mohammad Ramzan and pro-NC independent MLA from Langet, Engineer Sheikh Abdul Rasheed, stood up to raise the issue of yesterday’s severe windstorm that had left a woman dead and devastated hundreds of houses in their district of Kupwara in North Kashmir. While the Speaker began persuading them to sit and raise such matters of public importance on the following days of the session, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti got up to complain that the Government had failed to identify and arrest the killers of the two young women in Shopian in the last two months. She was instantaneously joined by nearly 20 of her MLAs.
Refusing to listen to the Speaker’s argument that today’s Business in the House was restricted to the obituary reference and no other issues could be raised on this solemn occasion, the PDP MLAs led by Ms Mufti amplified their slogans: “Shopian ke qatiloon ko pesh karo pesh karo”, “Aasiya ke qatiloon ko pesh karo pesh karo”, “Neelofar ke qatiloon ko pesh karo pesh karo”.
PDP’s former Ministers, namely Muzaffar Hussain Baig, Abdul Rehman Veeri, Abdul Gaffar Sofi, Javed Mustafa Mir, Mohammad Khalil Bandh and Syed Bashir Ahmed, senior leaders Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari and Nizam-ud-din Bhat were conspicuously present in the chorus. Former Chief Minister and the party patron, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had not arrived in.
As the PDP brigade refused to relent, Speaker ordered the marshals to remove them physically out of the House. While about a dozen of the agitating MLAs were being herded out, National Panthers Party’s MLAs, Harsh Dev Singh and Balwant Singh Mankotia, too joined the ruckus. They were heard shouting that the House was being turned into an exclusive platform for the ruling coalition parties and there was no hearing for the Opposition. Speaker continued gesticulating and yelling that the unruly members be taken out of the House.
It was on this point of time at 10.05 a.m that Mehbooba Mufti turned back and rushed straight into the Speaker’s desk. After shouting on the Speaker for few seconds, Ms Mufti wrenched one of his microphones and slammed it on the floor. As she began pulling down another fixed mike---either for throwing it on the Speaker or again on the floor---two of the female reporters of the Assembly overpowered her and pushed her towards the exit. With this, the pandemonium subsided and the Speaker began calling the members for speaking on the obituary reference. Deputy Speaker and Ms Mufti’s maternal uncle, Mohammad Sartaj Madni, was the only PDP MLA who stood back to participate in the proceedings.
Members of different political parties paid rich tributes to former member of Constituent Assembly and former MLA, Ram Piara Saraf, former member of Constituent Assembly and former MLC, Mansukh Rai, former Minister and MLA, Ghulam Nabi Kochak, as also to former MLAs, Ghulam Rasool Dar and Dr Jagdish Raj Dubey and former MP and Supreme Court of India lawyer, Ghulam Mohiuddin Shawl.
Speaker Lone announced withdrawal of action against the PDP MLAs on the CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami’s initiative and a messenger was sent to call them back. They, however, declined to return and staged a dharna on the outer entrance of the Secretariat and Legislature complexes. As the PDP MLAs were walking out to the venue, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed entered alongwith some of his colleagues but returned to his home without joining the sit-in.
Speaking to mediapersons, Ms Mufti said that she and her party’s MLAs would return to participate in the session only after Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, and Minister incharge Law & Parliamentary Affairs, Ali Mohammad Sagar, sought an apology. She complained that Speaker had acted “like a National Conference leader” and provoked her with “unparliamentary language”. She played down her act of attacking the Speaker as “reflex reaction” and claimed that she had no intention of hitting on the Speaker’s head. She alleged that Speaker had not only rejected most of her party’s resolutions but also ordered their removal within seconds and without using any other option of restoring order in the House.
Ms Mufti asserted that PDP would lay a parallel Assembly at the Secretariat entrance in case she and her colleagues were prevented from raising the Shopian rape-cum-murder on the floor of the House on Tuesday.
Speaker, Mohammad Akbar Lone, told Early Times that that there was no precedence of allowing the members to raise different issues of public importance on the solemn occasion of paying homage to the deceased members. He claimed that NC’s Choudhary Ramzan and BJP’s Chaman Lal Gupta attempted to speak but he did not allow them as such a discussion was not part of the obituary reference. He dismissed Ms Mufti’s conduct as “utterly unfortunate and condemnable” and claimed that no incident of any member’s attack on Speaker had happened in Jammu & Kashmir in the last several decades. He said that the woman legislator would have hit him and caused harm should the two female officials not have overpowered and taken her away. He alleged that Ms Mufti had attacked the House and its dignity and sanctity.
Speaker said that he would not personally seek or initiate any privilege proceedings against Ms Mufti and other MLAs of her party but would entertain and act upon such a move if pushed by any other member of the House. He reiterated that PDP had been spreading “a bundle of lies” on the selection of private members’ resolutions. He insisted that most of the PDP’s resolutions had been included in the draw of lots and the party had incidentally got share of three---equal to NC and BJP but far more than that of Congress. He said that a total of 14 private members’ resolutions had been picked up by lots out of more than one hundred for a discussion scheduled on July 29th and August 3rd next.
According to him, just a couple of the PDP’s resolutions had been excluded in the draw of lots on technical grounds like repetition within a year of earlier rejection and lack of jurisdiction. He claimed that most of the resolutions PDP had been trumpeting had been duly admitted and included. While some of them surfaced in the balloting, others failed. What’s Speaker’s fault in it?”, Mr Lone desired to know.
Speaking on the obituary reference, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah condemned PDP’s act of raising an uproar and attacking the Speaker and insisted that such “cheap histrionics” would neither help Ms Mufti’s party to win elections nor the hearts of the people she was supposed to represent as a leader of the Opposition. He contended that the hullabaloo would only waste precious time of the proceedings and cause an addition to the peoples’ miseries.
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