Held for protesting 7-day suspension on Telangana Assembly premises
As the confrontation between the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the Opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) continued to disrupt proceedings of the State legislative Assembly, ten TDP legislators were suspended for a week after they tried to stall the House.
They were also arrested by the police when they staged a dharna on the Assembly premises in protest against their suspension. It is the second time during the current Budget Session that TDP members have been suspended and forced out of the House. legislative Affairs Minister T Harish Rao moved the resolution suspending the members including the floor leader E Dayakar Rao and senior member A Revanth Reddy.
Revanth Reddy was once again the main focus of the trouble as the Harish Rao demanded that the former should tender an unconditional apology for his remarks against the TRS MP from Nizamabad K Kavita. Reddy, who has been involved in a running confrontation with TRS members over the last three days, had alleged that Kavita, daughter of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had registered herself twice in the household survey.
“Without going into the technicalities, Reddy should apologise before starting the discussion on the Budget,” Harish Rao said. After this, TRS and TDP members engaged in a shouting match as the House echoed with slogans demanding apology. Speaker Madhusudhana Chary, who adjourned the House for ten minutes held a meeting with the floor leaders of all the parties to end the stalemate.
later, when the discussion resumed, the TDP members started shouting slogans and demanded that they should be allowed to speak. But Harish Rao said that Reddy cannot be allowed to speak till he apologises. As the TDP members continued to interrupt the proceedings, Harish Rao moved a resolution suspending them for a week. They were forcibly taken out of the House by the Marshals.
Opposing the suspension of the members, TDP legislator Prabhakar said that if members were suspended on every minor issue, nobody will be left in the House. “If a members does something wrong the Speaker can give a ruling”, he said. He said it was unfortunate that the ruling party members were also speaking in the same manner like the TDP. “Will they also be suspended”, he asked.
Defending the Government action, Finance Minister Rajinder said that instead of the Government policies, the TDP members were targeting the individuals. “Even the language they were using outside the House was not civilised”, he said.
Angry TDP members staged a sit-in protest at Gandhi Statue outside the Assembly and shouted slogans against the Government. But the police took the MlAs into custody and shifted them to Goshamahal police station.
Earlier, the trouble started during the Question Hour over the issue of issuing ration cards to the poor families. Though Finance Minister Rajinder announced that the Government was in the process of issuing new ration cards to each and every poor family and a procedure was already finalised for the purpose, members of Opposition Congress, TDP, BJP and the CPI(M) staged a walkout from the House in protest against the Government's policy.
Dayakar Rao (TDP) alleged that while weeding out the bogus ration cards, the Government had failed to issue new ration cards to the deserving families. K lakshman (BJP) said that his party was walking out in protest against the decision of the Government not to link the white ration cards to the free medical treatment in Government hospitals.
Ramachandra Reddy of the BJP said that the Government's policy on ration cards had created a big confusion among the people. “Private individuals were gathering information from the people and also charging every family Rs 100 to Rs 200”, he complained. Finance Minister said that till the new cards were issued, the Government will ensure supply of ration on the basis of the old cards. “The Government is committed to fulfill all its welfare schemes”, he said.