BENGALURU: The refusal of Congress MLCs to ask questions to six ministers on Tuesday — citing the reason that they had sought injunction against broadcasting defamatory visuals of themselves — led to an uproar in the Council, forcing a brief adjournment. Congress MLC PR Ramesh boycotted a question meant to be answered by Minister for Cooperation ST Somashekhar, one of ministers who has sought an injunction. However, Deputy Chairman MK Pranesh said that members can only boycott answers if they are not satisfied, and cannot boycott questions without asking them.
“The ministers have moved court to avoid defamatory content (published) against them on social media platforms. It is not right to make it a big issue and boycott questions. Members should think of it before they list the questions. You have to give notice to withdraw or postpone the question,” Pranesh said.
Congress members objected, saying they had the right to boycott questions. Leader of the Opposition SR Patil intervened, saying, “This is the third or fourth time this is happening. Chairman Basavaraj Horatti had said that if members don’t want to ask a question, they are free to refrain, but it was not his business to know the reason for boycotting the question. When there is a ruling, why are you not sticking to it?”.
Pranesh said there was no such ruling, and the Opposition must stop interpreting things according to their whims. Somashekhar, seeking the chairman’s permission to speak, said, “When I was in the Congress, minister HY Meti faced a similar situation. He resigned as minister and was shattered by the incident. He was given a clean chit in three months, but the damage was done. He lost the elections. We have not approached court fearing there are CDs, there is a conspiracy against us by some people who think we caused the fall of the coalition government.”