Opposition stall proceedings,House adjourned twice

Bhubaneswar, June 7 (UNI) The Orissa Assembly today witnessed uproarious scenes as the opposition members trooped into the well shouting slogan protesting the appointment of all ruling BJD-BJP members in the governing body of colleges in the state.

The opposition shouted anti-government slogan protesting certain remarks of the Higher Education Minister and stalled the question hour business.

Speaker Maheswar Mohanty tried to pacify the opposition but the latter continued their slogan shouting inside the well.The Speaker then adjourned the House for thirty minutes.

The Assembly resumed after the adjournment but Deputy Speaker Prahallad Dora announced the House adjourned till 1500 hours as a result no other business could be taken up during the pre-lunch session.

The trouble started during the question hour when state Higher Education Minister was replying to a question of BJP member Baidhar Mallick on the utilisation of UGC fund in the colleges.

The Congress members while raising supplementary questions, criticised the government for appointing only ruling BJD-BJP MLAs as member in the governing body of the colleges.They pointed out that in 44 colleges where the governing body has been reconstituted, the ruling party members were taken as the members.

At this, the Higher Education Minister made certain passing remarks saying that the UPA government on resuming power at the Centre had removed all the hoardings of former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee on the national highways of the country.

This infuriated the opposition Congress members who were seen on their feet taking great exception to the Minister's statement and stalled the business of the House forcing the chair to adjourn the House twice till 1500 hours.

UNI