Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Heated debate over Cong. `behaviour'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD March 24. The Speaker, Pratibha Bharati, on Monday announced that she was referrring to the Ethics Committee of the Assembly the issue of gatecrashing by suspended Congress members into the Chief Minister's chambers and the alleged assault by the Chief Marshal on two crew of TV channels.

After the Congress stalled the proceedings for over four hours pressing its demand for ex gratia to families of farmers who committed suicide, she announced that the questions marked for question hour were deemed to have been answered.

The Revenue Minister, P. Ashokgajapati Raju, demanded an apology from the Leader of the Opposition, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, for the partymen's behaviour.

Giving a personal explanation, the Commercial Taxes Minister, K. Vijayarama Rao, sought to justify his statement blaming the Opposition Leader for Saturday's incident.

The Home Minister, T. Devender Goud, sought to know why the suspended Congress members rushed towards the Chief Minister's chamber. If Mr. Naidu had remained in his chamber what would have been the reputation of the Assembly and the Government, in the event of any untoward incident, he asked.

Making a statement, Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy charged the TDP with adopting dual standards while being in the Opposition and as ruling party. Referring to origin of the trouble on Saturday, he recalled that the zero hour proceedings when the TDP was in Opposition were stretched to three or four or even days. He contended that suspension of the Congress members was unwarranted as they had only tried to get Mr. Naidu to the House.

Dr. Reddy recalled treatment by TDP members when A. Dharma Rao was the Speaker as also when K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy was Chief Minister (by dancing on his car).

The Opposition leader said he was prepared to apologise provided he was faulted after the Government conducted an enquiry into the incident. When he sought to raise the issue of farmers' suicide and payment of ex gratia, the Speaker firmly told him to not to speak and that she would not allow any reference to it, as even two Ministers were not permitted to raise the subject.

Many Congress members objected to her stand, stood up and demanded an apology from the Chief Minister to the farmers for failing to keep his promise made prior to the last Assembly elections.

While N. Narsimhaiah (CPI(M)) wanted records verified for ascertaining to know what happened on Saturday, Asaduddin Owaisi (MIM) demanded an answer from the Government what was important -- the plight of farmers or the Saturday incident.

When M. Narsimhlu (TDP associate member) referred to the previous Congress regimes and Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy's track record, Congress members sought to shout him down. They rushed to the Speaker's podium and continued to raise slogans, "we demand ex gratia,'' "rythu vyathireka prabhutvam nasinchali,'' even as Mr. Naidu appealed to them to see reason.

Some among the treasury benches raised counter-slogans. Amid the din, the Speaker kept repeating her plea to Congress members to resume their seats, to allow Mr. Naidu to speak and to cooperate in conducting the House.

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