The Supreme Court’s ruling in connection with the Arunachal Pradesh Government reinstatement case over the limited role of the Speaker with no-confidence notice pending against him has cast its somber shadows on the first day of the specially convened two-day Assembly session that began on Thursday. With the Opposition BJP MlAs raising uproar over the constitutional impropriety of the Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal presiding over the session with no-confidence notice dangling over him, the Speaker announced that he and the Deputy Speaker would step aside and the Congress MlA Navprabhat would act as the Speaker to keep things going. Notably, the BJP MlAs and the nine dissident Congress MlAs had served no-confidence notices against the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker on the evening of March 18 while they were at the Governor’s House following the day’s fateful happenings. Things not seemingly clear to the BJP as to the constitutional status of the acting Speaker, the saffron lawmakers rejected the proposition, saying that a pro-tem Speaker duly appointed by the Governor could preside over the House in the absence of the Speaker and his deputy. Undaunted, the Speaker asked the BJP legislators to go through Article 180(2) and 181 of the Constitution. He allowed the Opposition 80 minutes to reply to him after perusing the two articles. With the Opposition failing to meet the Speaker-fixed deadline to reply, the Speaker foisted Navprabhat as the acting Speaker to preside over the House during the two-day special session.
The Opposition raised hue and cry against the Speaker’s move, dubbing it as amounting to nothing short of the murder of democracy as embodied in the Constitution. They asked Navprabhat to vacate the chair in keeping with the Constitutional norms.
Apparently placed in embarrassment, Navprabhat sought to clear the air by bringing a motion, asking the MlAs to raise their hands from their seats in case they supported his occupying the chair. The treasury bench rose in unison to show solidarity behind Navprabhat. The Opposition lawmakers were vociferously sloganeering against the process of gaining acceptance for his occupying the chair through the ‘murky’ means of unupmanship. They even trooped near the podium and tossed, tore, rolled and threw them, aiming at the well of the House. The marshal was found ducking the missiles. Some of them hit the Speaker’s chair too. Things worsened as they sought to storm near to the chair by mounting the table meant for the Vidhan Sabha reporter. However, the marshal stepped in to resist the angry lawmakers. The leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt spoke something. But the treasury bench refused to yield to what he said.
BJP MlAs Rajkumar Thural, Sanjay Gupta, Pushkar Singh Dhami and Daleep Singh Rawat were found desperate to make their voices heard by mounting chairs. At this stage, the Marshall intervened and shoved them away. MlA Ganesh Joshi, framed in the Shatimaan hind leg injury case, was found removing the loud speakers. In his customary fit of anger, he was found trying to throw his chair away. later, he restrained himself. Another BJP MlA Swami Yatiswaranad tried to do the same. With free-for all continuing, Daleep Singh Rawat, sporting black kurta, tried to tear it to show it to the acting Speaker by way of venting anger. Other saffron MlAs joined to help him.
With high drama going on, the acting Speaker seemed amused. Navprabhat said that the Opposition should have countered things by taking recourse to article 180(2) and 181 of the Constitution as they were asked to do by the Speaker. The Opposition had unfortunately chosen to unleash pandemonium instead of taking up the gauntlet in accordance with the Constitution, he said.
The bedlam continued till 12.30 pm after which the House was adjourned till 1pm. later, the adjournment was extended twice- till 1.15 pm and till 1.30 pm.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister Harish Rawat read the articles 180 and 181 of the Constitution in a bid to clear his government’s stance on the matter. But the Opposition was unconvinced. They said that by foisting an acting Speaker unilaterally without going for the constitutional norm of a pro-tem Speaker being duly appointed by the Governor was tantamount to the murder of the Constitution and the democratic functioning enshrined in it.