Stormy Scenes in MP Assembly, Congress MLAs Refuse to Take Part in Customary Photo Session

Bhopal: The Monsoon session of Madhya Pradesh assembly, the last before the upcoming election, got off to a stormy start on Monday as Congress demanded acceptance of its ‘no-trust motion’ against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government but the Speaker declined to fix a time frame to take it up, leading to heated exchanges.

Accusing the ruling BJP of running away from the no-confidence motion, Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh threatened to boycott the customary MLA photo-session organised by the assembly secretariat on Tuesday morning.

The Congress camp sent a letter to speaker Dr Sitasaran Sharma in the evening and made it clear that its MLAs won’t be taking part in photo session on Tuesday, saying that perhaps the BJP plans to curtail the already short session prematurely.

In no time, the assembly secretariat cancelled the photo session saying a future date is being pondered over for the customary tradition.

Earlier, as the session got underway on Monday, BJP and Congress MLAs engaged in a verbal dual on several issues, but most of the attention was focused on the no-trust motion and the judicial panel’s probe report on the Mandsaur police firing incident.

After three adjournments, Congress chief whip Ramniwas Rawat said the government was afraid of the motion, to which parliamentary affairs minister Narottam Mishra replied that Congress was presenting a motion based on fictitious problems in MP. He said that there were no charges leveled on ministers and no evidence of any wrongdoing.

The Congress pressed the Speaker to fix a time for debate on the issue, saying they would hand over its ‘chargesheet’ against the government within hours when the debate is fixed.

The Speaker referred to earlier instances when no-trust motions were moved by opposition after the assembly session got underway and were accepted.

Congress MLAs also led by Hardeep Singh Dang kept flashing placards in assembly seeking justice for Mandsaur farmers and insisting on tabling of probe report of Mandsaur police firing.

Senior Congress leader Govind Singh severely criticized the speaker’s ‘partisan’ behavior on no-trust motion. He asked him to step down, alleging such attitude is unbecoming of the head of the assembly. “State government instead of replying to our accusation always takes the escape route,” alleged the Congress lawmaker.