City Reports

Rajasthan Assembly: 14 MLAs suspended for a year for unruly behaviour

Apart from independent legislator Hanuman Beniwal and BSP MLA Manoj Nyangali, all are Congress MLAs.

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April 29, 2017, 6:04 pm

Rajasthan state assembly

Rajasthan state assembly building. Image credit: Post Staff.

Jaipur: Fourteen MLAs were suspended from the Rajasthan state assembly for a year for indulging in unruly behaviour, disrupting proceedings and using unparliamentary language in the house on Tuesday. Apart from independent legislator Hanuman Beniwal and BSP MLA Manoj Nyangali, all are Congress MLAs. They would also remain deprived of their wages, allowances and privileges as MLAs in this period.

Unruly scenes erupted in the assembly when opposition party MLAs alleged one of their legislators was not given the opportunity to ask his question during the question hour. They alleged that Speaker Kailash Meghawal didn’t allow him.

The question was about the PM Awaas Yojana raised by Congress members. When MLA Govind Singh Dotasara was not allowed to raise his supplementary question, Congress legislator created uproar and started shouting slogans.

The Speaker said it was his privilege to decide who could speak and who couldn’t.

Many legislators including Ashok Chandana and Dheeraj Gujjar started shouting and disrupted proceedings. The Speaker called marshals and asked them to escort protesting MLAs out of the house.

MLAs manhandled marshals when they were being escorted out of the house.

There are reports that foul language was used, however, it was removed from the assembly records.

Chief Whip Kaluram Gujjar moved a motion to suspend 14 unruly MLAs which was passed by voice vote. The Speaker announced the suspension.

Following MLAs were suspended:

  • Govind Singh Dotasara
  • Ramesh Meena
  • Ashok Chandana
  • Dheeraj Gujjar
  • Ghanshyam Mehar
  • Darshan Singh
  • Shravan Kumar
  • Shankuntala Rawat
  • Ramanarayan Gujjar
  • Hanuman Beniwal
  • Manoj Nyangali

Senior Congress legislators including Leader of Opposition Rameshwar Dudi said that the suspension was a move to kill democracy. They demanded that MLAs who were taken out by marshals should be allowed to participate in the proceedings, but the Speaker didn’t budge.

After the unruly scenes were witnessed, the Speaker said that it would be an insult to call these assembly members MLAs.

All Congress MLAs staged a walk out when the Speaker didn’t accede to the request of reviewing the suspension.

Congress MLA Govind Singh called a meeting of suspended legislators in his assembly chambers to discuss their strategy after the suspension.

First published: April 26, 2017