The Assembly was paralysed for the second consecutive day on Tuesday with the opposition Congress members continuing demonstration in the well of the House demanding Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's resignation and an apology over the police action on a scribe and Congress activists.
The House could run for only 16 minutes due to the continued uproar by the Congress members in the well to stall the proceedings as the Speaker ensured the passing of the most important - the Odisha Appropriation Bill-2013- in haste amid the din authorising payment and appropriation of annual Budget allocation for the State for the year 2013-14 in eight minutes and finally adjourning the House till April 2 due to the vacation for Dolapurnima and Holi.
The trouble started when the House met for the day at 10.30 am to take up the question hour. In continuation to their stir protesting police action on the Chhatra Congress activists and vandalism by police inside the Congress Bhawan at Bhubaneswar on Monday, the Congress members, who were on their toes by the time the Speaker arrived at his seat to start the proceedings, trooped into the well and started raising slogans against the Government and the Chief Minister.
They demanded that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who holds the Home portfolio should apologize and resign from his post. As the slogan got louder, the leader of the House Patnaik chose to leave the House within a minute.
Though the Speaker tried to carry out the question hour and asked Energy Minister Arun Kumar Sahu to reply the first question, the Congress members created pandemonium in support of their demand.
Amidst ruckus, Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat unable to transact the business, was forced to adjourn the House at 10.32 am till 12 noon and then from 12.01 pm to 3 pm. The House could hardly meet for three minutes during the pre lunch session in the process.
However, there was no change in the situation in the afternoon session which was to take up the passing of the Odisha Appropriation Bill-2013.
As the House reassembled at 3 pm, the Congress members rushed to the well and continued their demonstration demanding the resignation of the Chief Minister. They also shouted that the Chief Minister was shielding the former law Minister accused of torturing his daughter-in-law for dowry and Higher Education Minister Badrinarayan Patra responsible for the Plus Two examination question paper leak.
Finding it difficult to run the business amid the din, the Speaker urged the agitating members to return to their seats and cooperate in running the business. As the Congress members did not listen to him, the Speaker first asked the three House Committee heads to present their concerned reports. later, he took up the legislative business for introduction, consideration and passing of the Odisha
Appropriation Bill-2013. On the direction of the Speaker, Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya introduced the Appropriation Bill.
Since the agitating Congress members continued to ignore the Speaker's repeated request to participate in the discussion, he completed the exercise of passing the Money Bill in around eight minutes. To maintain the record straight as per the rule, he called five ruling party members - Government Chief Whip Pravat Tripathy, Government Deputy Chief Whip Sanjaya Dasburma, Pravat Ranjan Biswal, Dr Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik and Prafulla Samal to make their points.
Interestingly, during discussion, some of the members could not even complete their full sentences on their points. later, the Bill was passed after Finance Minister Acharya making his around two-minute speech on the Budget. Soon, Amat adjourned the House at 3.13 pm till April 2.