BHUBANESWAR: Winter session of the Odisha Legislative Assembly (OLA) started on a stormy note on Wednesday with Opposition BJP and Congress targeting the State Government on law and order issues.
Though an adjournment notice by BJP and Congress on deteriorating law and order and increasing atrocities on women was received by Speaker SN Patro for discussion, the Opposition members demanded that the issue be discussed by suspending the question hour immediately after the obituary reference on past members and a jawan.
As the Speaker allowed the question hour to run and Agriculture Minister Arun Sahoo rose to answer a question, members of both BJP and Congress rushed to the well of the house and began shouting slogans against the government.
Amid pandemonium, the Speaker adjourned the House till 3 pm.
Terming the adjournment unfortunate, Leader of Opposition (LoP), Pradipta Naik said, "We wanted a discussion on rising cases of harassment against women and deteriorating law and order situation in the State but the Speaker declined our proposal and adjourned the proceedings."
Justifying his demand, Naik cited rules under which discussion on an important issue like mysterious murder of lady PEO Smitarani Biswal could have been taken up for discussion.
Congress MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is always talking about 'Maa ku Saman' (dignity to women) but incidents like the death of the Lady PEO shows how insensitive is the BJD government to women atrocities. The Chief Minister has miserably failed in keeping his promise.
Disapproving the action of the Opposition members, senior BJD MLA Amar Prasad Satpathy said there was no urgency to take up the opposition adjournment motion by suspending the question hours.
"Assembly follows rules of business. Any deviation will unnecessarily kill the valuable times of the House which has much important businesses to transact. Question hour provides an opportunity for members to raise important issues. The Opposition sponsored motion could have been taken up at an appropriate time as per laid out norms," Satpathy said.
The Supplementary Budget for the financial year 2019 -2020 is expected to be tabled after the House resumes proceedings at 3 pm.