HYDERABAD: Stating that the House should discuss the “partisan behaviour” of Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, the BJP on Wednesday opined that action be taken against him accordingly. Chairing a meeting with conveners and joint-conveners of various parliamentary constituencies at the party office in Nampally, BJP State president Bandi Sanjay alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was afraid that BJP MLAs would put the ruling party in the dock over people’s issues and hence cut short the sessions to just two days.
“To those who are questioning us for criticising the Speaker, I want to ask whether it is okay for a Speaker who holds a constitutional position, to criticise a Union Minister? Let us first have a discussion on this. If we are not given a chance to raise people’s issues, we will settle scores in the public domain,” Sanjay said.
BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao said that most of the MLAs were still entering the Assembly premises when the House was abruptly adjourned, after sitting for “only six minutes”.
Referring to BJP MLAs not being invited to the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting on Tuesday where the agenda for the session was set, he reminded that in 1985, when NT Rama Rao was the chief minister, Ch Vidyasagar Rao was invited to the BAC meeting, though the party had only two MLAs.
Questioning whether the State government has passed an ordinance or a resolution to change the established traditions of the Assembly proceedings, Raghunandan Rao requested Legislative Affairs Minister Vemula Prashanth Reddy to show the rule according to which BJP was not invited to the meeting.
On the allegation of the Minister that Eatala Rajender had insulted the Speaker by calling him a puppet, Raghunandan Rao said that the word was not unparliamentary, and that in fact it was the Minister who had reduced the stature of the Speaker’s chair to a mere puppet by destroying the traditions of the Assembly.Raghunandan Rao invited Prashanth Reddy to explain when the traditions were changed, and if there was any rule which stated that parties with a set number of MLAs could only attend the BAC meeting.
He also showed a newspaper clipping with a picture of TRS MLC K Kavitha offering prayers at Tirupati on the eve of the Chief Minister’s birthday. In this picture, Abhishek Rao and Arun Ramchandra Pillai, on whose properties the ED had conducted raids on Tuesday in connection with the Delhi liquor scam were also seen, the BJP MLA claimed.
“My sister should explain to the people what this picture means, if she has no connection with the two gentlemen. She owes the people an answer,” he demanded. Rajender said that instead of protecting the rights of the MLAs and facilitating the discussions impartially on people’s issues, the Speaker, who he said was like his father, had reduced the status of his chair by acting with bias.