Bhubaneswar: Odisha Assembly witnessed ruckus for the second consecutive day Tuesday as opposition and treasury benches shouted slogans against each other.
Noisy scenes broke out as soon as the House assembled for the question hour.
Opposition BJP member sporting black badges and shouting slogans trooped into well of the House alleging that some of their questions were rejected without showing any reason.
“The (BJP) members should be given satisfactory reply on the reason for rejecting any question raised by them. The questions were rejected whimsically,” said opposition chief whip Mohan Majhi.
The ruling BJD members were on their feet and countered the BJP members saying the Centre did not hike the MSP of paddy.
This led to Speaker Pramila Mallik adjourning the House till 12 noon and convening an all-party meeting to restore normalcy.
The meeting was held at the speaker’s chamber and the proceedings resumed at 12 noon. However, the commotion broke out again forcing the speaker to adjourn the House till 4pm.
As the House remained paralysed, Mallik in a ruling asked the Assembly secretary to inquire into the allegations of the BJP members. The saffron party members had alleged that they were not informed regarding reason of rejection of their questions.
Majhi said it is “unfortunate” that the opposition members’ questions are rejected. “If our questions are not accepted for discussion during question hour, then why are we here? The BJP MLAs are sporting black badges to express their opposition to it,” he said.
He also accused the Congress for being hand in glove with the ruling BJD. “The Congress has given a notice for a discussion on teachers’ issue while BJP has been pressing for a debate on the government’s functioning style”.
Congress on the other hand rejected BJP’s allegation and claimed that it was in secret alliance with BJD.
BJP MLA Suryabanshi Suraj alleged that the government was avoiding questions in the House.
“It (the government) is filtering questions as per their convenience which is not acceptable. The voice of democracy is being choked in Odisha,” he said.
Government chief whip Prashant Muduli alleged that the BJP members are disrupting the House proceedings without any reason. “It is unfortunate. They too have a moral responsibility to ensure functioning of the House,” he added.
Congress member Taraprasad Bahinipati blamed both BJD and BJP for the impasse in the House. Both the parties do not want that the House to function properly so that the wrong doings of the central and the state governments remain hidden from the public.
On Monday the proceedings of the House was washed over protests by BJP members demanding a discussion on the governance style and rejection of questions raised by them.
PTI