HYDERABAD: A seven-hour-long debate on the recent floods and relief measures ended without a reply from the Government in the Assembly on Friday. The House was adjourned abruptly after the Government and the Opposition were caught wrangling over the timing of the reply.

While a determined Opposition insisted that the Government respond to the debate on Friday itself, the latter sought time till Monday. With neither of them yielding ground, the Speaker, K. R. Suresh Reddy, adjourned the House. TDP members sat for sometime in the House after its adjournment and raised slogans against the Government.

Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy argued in favour of closing the debate for the day to facilitate some of the party MLAs, to be present in their constituencies during the Central team's visit to the flood-hit areas.

The entire Opposition stood as one and alleged that the Government was coming up with an excuse to prolong the debate on a single issue and postpone the reply.

The debate saw the Chief Minister and Mr. Chandrababu Naidu hurling barbs at each other. Such was the bitterness that they referred to their private conversation at the customary pre-breakfast session hosted by the Speaker on Thursday.

The Chief Minister alleged that Mr. Naidu had left for Delhi in October 1998 without giving proper instructions on release of water resulting in collapse of the cofferdam at Srisailam project and damage to the power station. Quoting reports from Eenadu and The Hindu , he said it was "man made mistake".

He said a person who was Chief Minister for over eight years was clueless about release of water from reservoirs. In such an event, how could he comment on the release of water from Sriramsagar project, he asked. He also brushed aside his charge that gates at Dowleswaram were not opened in time resulting in flooding of Godavari and breaches.

`Politicising issue'

Charging him with politicising the issue of relief, he said Mr. Naidu made his intention of stalling the proceedings clear during the breakfast hosted by the Speaker.

Mr. Naidu retorted by asking why Dr. Reddy had to go back to 1998 when the subject pertained to floods in 2006. He said the Chief Minister was resorting to his old strategy of mounting a counter attack on Opposition when confronted with facts and figures.

He asked Dr. Reddy to respond to his specific charges -- 37 gates of Dowleswaram barrage could not be opened in time, there were no flood control measures worth the name and that floods in Vamsadhara caused breaches at several places on August 3 as Government failed to take up repair works on July 3.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu