Assembly adjourned till Monday over BJP's furore on anti-media issue

Panaji, July 14 (UNI) Goa Assembly Speaker Francisco Sardinha today adjourned the House till Monday after BJP Opposition created furore in the House against yesterday's ruling of the Chair, disallowing electronic media to cover the proceedings beyond question hour.

With the adjournment, the private members' business could not be transacted, which was on today's agenda.

Earlier, Mr Sardinha adjourned the House for half-an-hour when the irate Opposition stormed into the Well of the House in the 'zero' hour and raised slogans against dictatorial attitude of the Speaker saying ''Tanashahi Nahi Chalegi (dictatorship will not be tolerated).'' The Speaker had told them they could not challenge his ruling.

The issued was raised by BJP Legislator Babu Azgaoncar, who protested the Speaker's order of yesterday, saying it was not a good sign of democracy and that the Speaker took unilateral decision without taking the Opposition into confidence.

Following this, the Speaker adjourned the House for 30 minutes.

However, as soon as the House resumed, the BJP members again created noisy scenes and the Speaker then adjourned the House till Monday.

Mr Sardinha had yesterday restricted the coverage of the electronic media to the question hour, on the observation that the media was not giving any ''fair and balanced coverage'' of the proceedings of the House for the ruling party and the Opposition, besides failing to restrain itself from reporting expunged remarks.

The print and electronic media had also called on the Speaker and pleaded for revoking the decision, assuring him that there would not be any violations and that the House could go ahead with the contempt proceedings against violators of the law.

UNI BM GK AD GC1708