LUCKNOW: In an unprecedented move, opposition parties, which are boycotting the budget session of Uttar Pradesh assembly, held a parallel session in the central hall of Vidhan Bhawan on Monday to pay condolence to sitting BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal who died due to prolonged illness on July 22, 2017.
The entire opposition instead of participating in the proceedings of house, which had assembled in the morning to pay condolence and tribute to the departed leader on Monday morning, condoled death of BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal and said that it was unfortunate that chief minister Yogi was not present in the House for condolence resolution.
Holding the parallel proceedings, leader of BSP Lalji Verma acted as mock Speaker, Congress’ Ajay Kumar Lallu played leader of the house and SP’s Ram Govind Chaudhary remained Leader of Opposition while paying tribute to the departed BJP MLA by passing an obituary reference.
However, in the morning, Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit adjourned the house till Wednesday after passing the obituary reference to the BJP MLA who passed away after a prolonged illness on July 22. Pal had been suffering from cancer for quite some time. He was elected on BJP ticket from Sikandara constituency of Kanpur Dehat.
On the other, Opposition members boycotted the Assembly proceedings for the third consecutive day blaming the leader of the House for not taking any initiative to end the deadlock between the government and the Opposition.
Earlier, The three major political parties including SP, BSP and Congress decided to boycott the remaining part of the budget session protesting against unparliamentary language allegedly used by CM Yogi Adityanath while delivering his
speech on the floor of the house in response to budget discussion on July 19.
"Till today the government has not tried to reach out to the opposition to end the stalemate and run the House. As per the media reports, the parliamentary affairs minister has left it to the opposition to join or boycott the house,” said BSP leader in house Lalji Verma.
However, Congress’ Ajay Kumar Lallu condemned the CM for remaining absent from the house while it assembled to condole his own MLA’s demise. "Traditionally, the Leader of the House reads the obituary reference but the CM was not present and it was read by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Kumar Khanna," Lallu said.
Recalling the previous deadlocks, when BJP member Upendra Tiwari sat on dharna during previous regime, the then parliamentary affairs minister Azam Khan, senior minister Shivpal Yadav and Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey had reached out to him and got the dharna lifted, he said.