Noisy protests from Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) members marred the beginning of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly’s Budget session on Monday. There are only seven members of the party in the House, but they continued to raise voice during the whole address of Governor.

As Governor Ram Naresh Yadav started highlighting various achievements of the State Government, specially in the field of agriculture in which it has registered 18 per cent growth and was awarded ‘Krishi Karman Award’ by the Centre, BSP members, led by its legislative party leader Ram lakhan Singh, interrupted till the end of the address.

later, other BSP members also joined him alleging that despite highlighting issue like injustice, atrocities committed on Dalits and tribals and problem being faced by farmers because of recent hailstorm, no action was taken by the State Government to address their problems.

Notably, the BSP legislators also received help from Congress member Kalpana Parulekar. All the Congress members were mute spectators to the whole process of disruptions, but only Kalpana continued to lead the BSP member stating that the Governor should listen to the members.

The protesting BSP members later joined their leader on front benches and continued with slogan shouting till the Governor completed his address.

After the Governor’s address, the BSP members staged a walkout from the House in protest even before Yadav left.

Highlighting steps taken by the Government for the welfare of farmers, the Governor said that it was committed to making agriculture a profitable venture and had taken a number of measures in this regard like agriculture loan on zero per cent and bonus above MSP on wheat and paddy crops. The government has procured 85-lakh MT wheat and established a new record

in increasing irrigated area in the State.

Referring to the issue of recent damage to crops due to hailstorm, the Governor said the State Government was taking all possible measures to help the affected farmers. The Governor also highlighted a number of other measures taken by the State BJP Government in the field of power, education, health, industrialisation, launching of ‘Maryada Abhiyan’ to curb the practice of open defecation, successful re-introduction of tigers in Panna Tiger Reserve and round-the-clock power supply in rural areas, under Atal Jyoti Campaign.