Opposition stages walkout over price-rise

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 28: The Congress-led Opposition staged a walkout in the Kerala Assembly today alleging the government's "failure" to check price-rise of essential commodities.

Earlier, the House was adjourned for about two hours when Opposition members stalled proceedings of the House insisting that an adjournment motion on the ADB loan, for which notice was given by Kerala Congress leader K M Mani, be taken up for discussion.

Speaker K Radhakrishnan ruled that the motion on the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan for the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Programme could not be taken up for discussion in the absence of Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan who was away in Kochi to attend an important conference.

He said the motion could be taken up tomorrow so that the Chief Minister could reply to it.

Dissatisfied over the Speaker's ruling, Opposition members rose from their seats and began to shout slogans against the government.

They said any minister could reply to the discussion as the Cabinet had collective responsibility. As the slogan shouting continued, the Speaker adjourned the House.

After consultation with party floor leaders in the Speaker's chamber, the House reassembled and allowed Mr K C Venugopal (Cong) to move his notice for the adjournment motion on price-rise.

Replying to the notice, Food and Civil Supplies Minister C Divakaran said increase in the prices of petrol and diesel and inflation were the main reasons for the price-rise of essential commodities. The UPA government had hiked the prices of petroleum products six times since it came to power. Besides, some of its policies were aimed at weakening the public distribution system, he alleged.

Mr Divakaran said the state government had taken several steps to bring down the prices including market intervention by the State Civil Supplies Corporation.

In the light of the minister's reply, the Speaker refused leave for the motion.

UNI