Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 19: Chaotic scenes were witnessed in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Wednesday as the opposition BJP members shouted slogans and rushed to the well of the House forcing the Speaker U T Khader to suspend 10 BJP MLAs for ‘indiscipline.’
The speaker announced the suspension of the 10 members, including four former ministers, after the legislators tore copies of the Bills passed in the House and threw them at Deputy Speaker Rudrappa Lamani.
One of the BJP MLAs Basangouda Patil was wheeled out of the state Assembly and taken to a hospital as his blood pressure levels began fluctuating amid chaos and pandemonium during the BJP’s protest in the House, prompting his party MLAs to rush him out for a medical check-up. His condition, the hospital sources said, was stable in the evening.
House marshals removed the suspended legislators, including four former ministers — R Ashok, Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, Araga Jnanendra and V Sunil Kumar. All the 10 were suspended till the end of the budget session on July 21. Papers were hurled at Lamani during the first half of the session when the BJP was protesting the alleged government decision to depute IAS officers to welcome leaders who arrived for the Congress-led opposition parties meeting held in the city on Tuesday.
Khader — as soon as the House convened for the second half — announced that action would be initiated against the legislators and named 10 of them, following which Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil proposed that the members be suspended till the end of session on July 21.
Dramatic scenes were witnessed after the suspension as BJP MLAs continued to remain in the well of the House. As the marshals entered the well to remove the legislators, the group of BJP MLAs present resisted, making it difficult to remove the suspended legislators.
This led to a scuffle lasting around 10-15 minutes. The government passed five Bills in the din and the Speaker decided to take up discussion on the budget without adjourning the House for lunch. The delay in adjourning the Assembly for lunch infuriated the BJP legislators further, who intensified their protest. Lamani, who was occupying the Speaker’s chair, after Khader left on a break, bore the brunt of opposition anger. A few BJP legislators tore up copies of the Bills passed and threw them at him, angering the Treasury benches.
According to the BJP and the Janata Dal Secular (JDS) – in opposition in Karnataka, 30 Indian Administrative Services officers were allegedly deputed by the Congress to “serve” its alliance leaders, who were in Bengaluru to strategise for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The parties later gave notice seeking a no-confidence motion against Assembly Speaker Khader after he suspended 10 BJP MLAs for the rest of the ongoing session over “indecent and disrespectful conduct.” Later, the police detained several BJP MLAs, including former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, for protesting outside the state Assembly.