On a day when Maharashtra Chief Minister Defendra Fadnavis defended his Government’s decision to suspend 19 Congress and NCP MlAs for creating ruckus during the State Budget in the Assembly last week, the Opposition on Friday apprehended similar disciplinary action against 12 of its members in the Upper House.
Ahead of the Government’s plans to table a resolution in the State legislative Council seeking the suspension of 12 of its members for disrupting the proceedings in the House during the presentation of the State Budget on Saturday last, the Opposition Congress and NCP members rushed to the well of the State and created ruckus once again, promoting the chair to adjourn the proceedings for the day.
Friday was the 13th day when the Opposition members disrupted the proceedings in the State legislative Council over their clamour farm loan waiver issue.
Informed sources in the ruling BJP said the State Government had for the last two been planning to move a resolution in the Upper House, seeking the suspension of 12 of its legislators - along the lines of a similar action it initiated against 19 Opposition members — nine belonging to the Congress and 10 from the NCP — on Wednesday after they disrupted the presentation of the Budget presentation in the Assembly and made bonfire of the budget papers outside the House.
Meanwhile, defending the suspension of the 19 Opposition MlAs from the State Assembly, the Chief Minister said in the lower house: “The Opposition MlAs were not suspended because of their clamour for farm loan waiver. They were suspended because of their breach of rules in the House.”
“The suspended Opposition MlAs disrupted the presentation of the State Budget, but they also committed a major blunder by burning down the copies of the budget papers which is something unpardonable... We are not pleased to suspend the Opposition MlAs. Through the nature of their agitation for waiver of farm loans, the Opposition members made a mockery of the distressed farmers in the state,” Fadnavis said.
Hitting out at the Opposition for “firing from the shoulders of the ruling Shiv Sena”, Fadnavis said that his party’s ally Sena had lent its full support to the State budget last week. “They were firing from the shoulders of the Shiv Sena.. The agrarian crisis that we are witnessing in the stare is because of the Congress-NCP alliance Government’s misrule of 15 years,” the Chief Minister said.
Fadnavis said he and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray were on the same page as far as the State budget was concerned. “I spoke to him (Uddhav) and explained our position...he has given his party’s full support to the budget”.