Monsoon session: Logjam continues in Himachal Pradesh assembly

SHIMLA: For third consecutive day uproarious scenes were witnessed inside Himachal Pradesh Assembly during the ongoing monsoon session. Congress legislators protested by going inside the well of the House when chief minister Jai Ram Thakur was replying to adjournment motion moved by opposition under Rule-67.
Chaos started as soon as the day’s proceedings started on Wednesday and speaker Vipin Singh Parmar asked the chief minister to reply to the discussion held under Rule-67.Leader of opposition Mukesh Agnihotri and Congress MLA Harshvardhan Chauhan started demanding permission for the opposition to speak.
The speaker said the issue was discussed for more than six hours. He said 15 members from the ruling side and 13 members from the opposition have participated in the discussion and now, after two days, chief minister is replying. After the speaker gave the ruling, the chief minister rose to reply, but opposition started raising slogans and soon went inside the well.
Thakur said by creating such circumstances, opposition has only exposed itself. He said in Congress ruled states, assembly sessions are being concluded in one to three days while in Himachal Pradesh, the opposition was allowed to speak for two days.
He said it will be written in the history that during pandemic situation, opposition was clapping sitting inside the well of the House. He said opposition actually should have suggested the government about steps to be taken in future to deal with such situation. After chief minister completed his reply opposition members returned to their seats and later they went out of the House.
After opposition went outside, Thakur said it was not walkout. But while speaking to the journalists outside the assembly, Agnihotri said opposition had staged a walkout. He alleged that opposition was not allowed to speak on the adjournment motion.