Four months after getting voted out of power, Kerala’s Congress-led Opposition UDF seemed to be following the same methods of protests for which it had criticised the CPI(M)-led lDF–now in power – when the left was in Opposition as it stalled Assembly proceedings with intense slogan-shouting and observed a shutdown in Thiruvananthapuram district on Wednesday.
The UDF forced adjournment of the House by turning it into their protest platform and started an indefinite fast at the portal of the Assembly hall over the issue of the “steep fee hike” in self-financing medical colleges even as tension prevailed in several parts of Thiruvananthapuram due to the shutdown called by the front to protest against Tuesday’s police action against Youth Congress workers.
Congress MlAs Shafi Parambil and Hibi Eden and Kerala Congress (J) member Anoop Jacob started an indefinite fast outside the Assembly hall on Wednesday morning even as the other UDF members led by Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy raised intense protests inside the House over the medical fees hike and Tuesday’s police action.
The protesting members also wanted Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to withdraw his statement in the Assembly that those who had waved black flags at him on Tuesday were not Youth Congress workers but people hired by some TV channels. Despite the protests, Pinarayi stood by his statement saying, “That was the impression I got and there is no need to change it.”
The Opposition members, who had arrived in the House with banners and placards, started raising noisy protests during Question Hour itself despite the appeals for calm from Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan. Heated arguments took place between UDF and lDF members after the Speaker denied Chennithala the permission to speak.
At the start of the Zero Hour, Chennithala made it clear that the Government would not be allowed to go ahead with the agreement on fees it had reached with the managements of self-financing medical colleges. Amidst the growing din, the Opposition members trooped into the Well of the House and encircled the Speaker’s podium.
As it became obvious that the slogan-shouting Opposition members were determined not to allow the House to run properly, the Speaker rushed through the business and announced adjournment for the day in the morning itself. Chennithala alleged that the Speaker had denied the Opposition its rights and that he was acting as per Pinarayi’s instructions.
A senior journalist who has been covering Assembly sessions for the past 20 years said, “The UDF is following the same methods of protest that the left had been following and the lDF, which had even gone to the extent of vandalising the Speaker’s podium when it was in Opposition, is now pretending to be guardians of parliamentary democracy.”
Meanwhile, the UDF-sponsored dawn-to-dusk shutdown threw normal life out of gear in Thiruvananthapuram district with protestors resorting to pelting stones at State-owned buses, blocking vehicles and forcing closure of trade and commercial establishments including banks. Activists could be seen downing the shutters of ATM booths in the capital city.
Youth Congress workers blocked the vehicle of Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac of the CPI(M) at Baker Junction in the city. A tourist from Spain who was forced to walk over five kilometres to reach her hotel due to non-availability of vehicles said, “I have been to over 20 countries. This is the first time I am having such an experience.”
“This is a big joke and an act of hypocrisy. It was Chennithala who had introduced a Bill in the Assembly for controlling hartals when he was Home Minister. A top Congress leader had also held a dharna in the capital demanding a ban on hartals. Now they are justifying their own hartal,” said Vijayan Nair, a Thiruvananthapuram-based social worker.
However, Chennithala justified the UDF hartal saying that it was inevitable. “I myself had presented the bill on hartal in the Assembly. But we are viewing hartal as a form of protest to be resorted to only in situations where it is inevitable,” he said while State Congress vice-president VD Satheesan said Wednesday’s hartal should have been avoided.