BENGALURU: Assembly Speaker K B Koliwad on Thursday reserved his ruling on a motion of breach of privilege moved by Opposition BJP against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for allegedly “making false statement to mislead the House” on the issue of pay hike for anganwadi workers.
Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar accused Siddaramaiah of misleading the House during the debate on the protest by anganwadi workers in the city demanding a wage hike, which entered the fourth day on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Siddaramaiah while stating that his government was sympathetic to anganwadi workers’ grievances and the need to raise their honorarium, had charged that the BJP had not raised their salary even by a single rupee when it was in power. He had even challenged the BJP members to move a privilege motion if he was giving false information.
Siddaramaiah’s statement came under strong attack from the BJP members who denied the charge. Later correcting himself, Siddaramaiah admitted that the BJP government had increased anganwadi workers wages a couple of times.
Moving the motion, Shettar said the Chief Minister has misled the House and the people by making false statements. Reading out Siddaramaiah’s statements, he said, “The Chief Minister repeatedly said BJP did not give even a single paisa while in the government to anganwadi workers.
Chief Minister’s position is a responsible position, one has to be patient while countering the opposition and it should be done with facts...He did not show any courtesy. We feel our privileges have been breached, please admit our privilege motion,” he appealed to the Speaker.
Former Speaker K G Bopaiah (BJP) said the Chief Minister’s comments were not a sudden response to a provocation, as being touted by ruling party members, but they clearly amounted to breach of privilege.
Intervening, Health Minister K R Ramesh Kumar said the Chief Minister made those statements in a fit of rage and he corrected his statement after he realised the mistake.
After hearing the members, the Speaker reserved his orders on whether to refer the matter to the Privileges Committee or not.