By yielding his chair after the session started, the Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal flabbergasted the Opposition on Thursday. It was clear from the gait of the Opposition camp that they were baffled by the crafty move. The Opposition dreaming not to allow the House to run while raking up the ticklish issue of no- confidence motion (NCM) pending against the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker in the light of the Supreme Court’s ruling vis-a-vis the Arunachal Pradesh logjam was thwarted by what happened inside the House on Thursday. To lodge their protest against the state government, a delegation of BJP members led by state bJP president Ajay bhatt met governor DR KK Paul at Rajbhawan on Thursday.
As house began at 11 am the Opposition members, including the Opposition leader Ajay Bhatt and his deputy Madan Kaushik- beaming over the fact that they had finally got the ruling party caught in an awkward predicament-were seen shuffling through the pages of Indian Constitution keenly to provide themselves with more ammunition to storm the treasury bench’s forte headon. However, at the end of the day, they were found crest-fallen, licking their wounds, being beaten by the counter-strategy formulated by the Chief Minister, the Speaker and others.
Right in the House, the saffron party used every weapon kept in its arsenal to blast the Speaker’s move to foist another MlA in the chair. They took recourse to Constitutional logic as well as the provisions of the Vidhan Sabha proceedings to make the Speaker to yield to their demand. The Speaker instead threw the gauntlet to the saffron camp to read two articles of the Constitution before raising hammer and tongs against what he has done.
Wily Harish Rawat, seen smiling with the opposition ‘pranks’, later rubbed salt to their festering wounds as he read aloud the two articles invoked by the Speaker in defence of his move. However, at the time , there was no Opposition member to challenge the CM. They chose to flee the battle-field, citing logic meant to offset the crafty move of the ruling party. The ruling party used their absence up to the hilt as they delivered a severe blow to the Opposition, rejecting the no-confidence notice served on the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker on March 18 when the House was on the boil over the passage of the appropriation bill. It seems that the Opposition was provoked to enmesh itself in the trap craftily laid by the ruling party leaders.
CM Rawat said that the Constitution has empowered the House to form chairperson’s board comprising members, which is fully competent to preside over the House in case of the absence of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. “The Opposition was intent on disrupting things without going through the nuances of what the Constitution says. Empowering Navprabhat to act as the Speaker is completely in tune with the provisions of the Constitution,” he said in stout defence of the Speaker’s move.
Observers say that BJP might move court again. “But on the first day of the two-day session, it is win-win for Harish Rawat,” said one of them.