Raj Assembly witnesses walkout, adjournment

Jaipur, Jul 15 (UNI) The Opposition Congress' bid to put in the dock the Raje Government in the Rajasthan Assembly continued resulting into a walkout and a 30-minute adjournment on different issues.

The House proceedings on the second day of the special session began today again on a stormy note, with the issue of suspension of a question about last month's Gujjar agitation. Following this the proceedings of the Question Hour were stalled and the Opposition staged a walkout.

Unruly scenes were also witnessed in the Zero Hour over the imprisonment of three MLAs and led to forced adjournment for 30 minutes.

The very first question on today's list in the Question Hour, asked by Bharat Singh (Congress) over Gujjar agitation, was suspended by the Government on the grounds of an impending Judicial probe into the matter.

This agitated the Opposition as the members including Zuber Khan, Ram Narain Meena, BD Kalla, Hari Mohan Sharma, Mahir Azad, Ashok Bairwa and Sanyam Lodha were of the view that the Question was cleared by the Speaker for inclusion in the starred list of questions for the day and only the Chair and not the Government, was competent to decide the status of a question.

Therefore, after listing of the question, the Home Minister could not evade it by saying that it was quasi judicial and should not be discussed in this house.

Leader of the Oppostion Hema Ram Chaudhary also defended the members saying that the house was supposed to abide by the ruling of the House and not the words of the Government.

Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria said the government was acting as per the business and procedure rules of the house.

Speaker Sumitra Singh also held that since the issue was pending before the judicial commission and there was practice of suspending a question, therefore, the Opposition should not disrupt the proceeding.

''Even if you want to press for discussion over the question, there is a prescribed procedure for taking up suspended question, you come to me as per that procedure I may consider but right now allow the agenda to be completed'', the Speaker said.

However, this did not satisfy the Opposition Members and they continued to press for a reply from the Home Minister.

However, the Speaker did not allow and held that their versions would not go on record and she called for the next question on the list.

But the Opposition members stood up and started speaking simultaneously. This attracted objections from the ruling BJP party members as they resorted to raise anti-Congress slogans.

At one point of time, Congress Member Ashok Bairwa made unparliamentary utterances which made the Speaker angry and she ordered the member to get out of the house.

However, the opposition defended Mr Bairwa and urged the Speaker to expell all of them. This again led to slogan shouting from both sides and continued till the Congress members staged a walkout seconds before the end of the Question Hour.

Later in the Zero Hour, the Opposition again took offensive against the government over the issue of ''undue'' imprisonment of three of the sittng MLAs during Gujjar agitation for 34 days.

The issue marred the Zero hour for about 15 minutes and forced the Chair to adjourn the house for 30 minutes.

UNI SS ARR NS1530