Date:06/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/06/stories/2007110659880100.htm

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‘Hot’ beginning to winter session of Assembly

Special Correspondent

Speaker adjourns House after a chaotic twenty minutes

Chief Minister reportedly asks Naidu to “shut up”
Naidu and his deputies walk out of the BAC

— PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

MAXIMUM SUPPORT FOR MSP: CPI and CPI (M) legislators walk with sheaves of paddy towards the Assembly in Hyderabad on Monday.

HYDERABAD: The winter session of the Assembly began on a note of rancour and drama on Monday over the issue of minimum support price for paddy with the action outside dominating proceedings inside the House.

No business was transacted as Opposition members repeatedly stormed the well carrying an assortment of items such as sheaves of paddy, posters and even a banner to highlight their protest. After two adjournments, Speaker K. R. Suresh Reddy said he could not conduct business amid the ‘pandemonium’ and finally adjourned the House for the day.

In all, the proceedings lasted just 20 minutes in three instalments.

The TDP and TRS tabled notices for adjournment of all other business for a debate on a higher MSP for paddy, the CPI (M) and the CPI wanted discussion on constituting a nodal agency to oversee use of funds for SC and ST sub plans, while the MIM sought a debate on the bomb blasts in the city.

Rejecting all the five notices, the Speaker advised members to wait till the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) finalised the agenda for the two-week long session later in the day but there was none to listen to his suggestion.

The BAC meeting itself witnessed a bitter row between Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Leader of the Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu. According to versions put out by the two parties, Dr. Reddy made sarcastic remarks and even asked Mr. Naidu to ‘shut up’ while Mr. Naidu was accused of provoking the former by listing out dos and don’t’s. Mr. Naidu and his deputies walked out of the BAC while other TDP MLAs staged a sit-in below Mahatma Gandhi’s statue with black cloth tied across their mouths.

Plan foiled

The tone was set early in the morning when Mr. Naidu and his MLAs drove to the Assembly in a tractor-trailer from the NTR Ghat. Their plan to come in bullock carts was foiled by police who seized them late Sunday night.

Members of the Left parties marched in a procession from Old MLAs Quarters to the House wearing red shirts and carrying sheaves of paddy.