BHUBANESWAR: Speaker of Odisha Assembly Surya Narayan Patro softened his directive on ban on media from reporting any ruckus in the House after a day-long protest by Opposition Congress and BJP members against his Friday ruling.
The House had to be adjourned several times during the day by the Speaker following protest by members in the well.
Normalcy returned to the House and Opposition members participated in the discussion on the motion of thanks for the Governor’s address after the Speaker clarified that his ruling was for only one day.
The Speaker convened an all-party meeting at 5 pm following repeated disruption of the House proceedings by the Opposition members demanding reconsideration of his ruling.
The House could run for only four minutes between 10.30 am and 6.50 pm even as the all-party meeting continued.
There were noisy scenes in the House as soon as the Question Hour began at 10.30 am with Congress and BJP members urging the Speaker to reconsider the ruling and allow media to report the happenings in the House.
As the Speaker did not pay heed to their demands, chaos continued, leading to adjournments, first till 11.30 am and then till 3 pm.
The Speaker in a ruling on Friday had directed both the print and electronic media not to report the ruckus inside the House and put a ban on using the names of members staging protest in the well, inviting strong criticism from BJP and Congress.
Leader of Opposition Pradipta Kumar Naik said the Speaker’s ruling is “detrimental” to the democratic rights of the legislators, and demanded its immediate withdrawal.
Deputy leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Santosh Singh Saluja said the Speaker’s ruling is not acceptable in a democracy. “If the MLAs don’t protest in the Assembly where should they go? The lawmakers have democratic rights to protest in the Assembly,” he said.
Government Chief Whip Pramilla Mallick, however, maintained that Speaker’s ruling is based on the practices being followed in Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and other State Assemblies. The House could not discuss the recent deaths of 10 persons due to electrocution in a bus in Ganjam district because of noisy scenes. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik was not present in the House on Saturday.