Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Opposition stalls proceedings

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Opposition United Democratic Front members stalled the proceedings of the Kerala Assembly on Thursday alleging that Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had breached the privileges of the House by withholding his expression of regret for his controversial remark at Bangalore from the Assembly and doing so outside the House.

With the Opposition members occupying the well of the House shouting slogans against the Chief Minister, Speaker K. Radhakrishnan was forced to rush through the business scheduled for the day and bring the day’s sitting to a close before the House was even 30 minutes into the zero hour.

Earlier, the Speaker pleaded with the Opposition to return to their seats with the offer that they would get the opportunity to have their say, but in vain.

When the Opposition members refused to relent, some treasury bench members also rushed to the aisle challenging them. The day ended with the rival sides levelling charges against each other at news conferences held outside the House and privilege notices reportedly being filed by K.C. Joseph (Congress) against Mr. Achuthanandan and P. Jayarajan (CPI-M) against Kerala Congress(M) leader K.M. Mani.

Even as the Opposition members got ready to move forward, Mr. Chandy accused the Chief Minister of having tried to create a misunderstanding about his expression of regret for his remark about his visit to slain NSG commando Maj. Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s home in Bangalore on Sunday. The Chief Minister did not express regrets inside the House. He did so only at the news conference held after the House rose for the day with the claim that he done so inside the House and that the Opposition was making it appear that he had not done so.

Opposing Mr. Chandy’s contentions, the Chief Minister said the matter was not something that should be discussed in the form of an adjournment motion and argued that if there was any breach of privileges of the House, appropriate measures could be taken.

Outside the House, Mr. Chandy told reporters that Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, K.C. Joseph and K.C. Venugopal (all Congress) and Joseph M. Puthussery (KC-M) had heard the recording of the Chief Minister’s speech and read the unedited transcript and found that he had not expressed his regret for his controversial remark inside the House.

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