BHUBANESWAR: Speaker Pramila Mallik on Tuesday announced in the Assembly that she will ask the secretary to probe why the members were not informed about rejection of questions submitted by them for discussion in the House within five days as per the rules. The speaker’s ruling came following ruckus created by BJP members, alleging questions submitted by them were not considered and arbitrarily rejected.
As soon as the House assembled for the day, BJP members stormed to the well wearing black badges and shouted slogans. The speaker adjourned the house till 12 pm and then till 4 pm as the members continued their protest. The BJD members countered the BJP MLAs by standing near their seats and raising the issue of revision of minimum support price (MSP) on paddy.
The speaker convened an all-party meeting to find out ways to restore normalcy. However, the meeting failed to resolve the issue with leader of the Congress Legislature Party Narasingh Mishra walking out because of differences with BJP members.
The Congress did not support the BJP in disrupting the proceedings and wanted the House to run during question hour. However, the BJP members have created ruckus from the beginning of the question hour for two days. The protest continued during the afternoon session in which the state government passed six bills.
Stating that rejection of questions raised by members is unfortunate, Opposition chief whip Mohan Majhi said outside the House that the state government is trying to avoid question hour.CLP leader Mishra blamed both the BJD and BJP for the disruption. There are so many issues to be raised, but both these parties do not want discussion, he said.