BJP MLAs stage walkout in J&K Assembly, allege bias by Speaker

Jammu, Feb 4: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators on Wednesday walked out of the House en masse to register their protest against what they alleged was “partial treatment being meted out to them by the Speaker of the J&K Legislative Assembly in allotting time to participate in the debate.”

The issue erupted when the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the Lieutenant Governor’s Address was in progress. National Conference legislator Sajjad Shaheed was speaking when the BJP MLAs pointed out that he was being allowed to speak even beyond his allotted time while they were not being given time to speak.

They conveyed their grouse to the Chair, saying, “You are taking the House and the opposition for granted. If you don’t want us to speak, we will move out of the House.”

Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather, however, rejected their charge. “I’m following due procedure. I’m very alert to it. Your member Slathia Sahib will be the next Speaker,” he assured the protesting members.

In between, the BJP legislators were having arguments with NC legislators on the closure of SMVDIME, NLU and other issues. BJP MLA Vikram Randhawa joined by one or two other party colleagues had some arguments with the Minister for Transport Satish Sharma also.

“Ok, if you don’t want to give time to speak, we’ll walk out,” Balwant Singh Manokotia and Sham Lal Sharma addressed the Chair.

Though the Speaker asked Slathia to speak but ignoring his calls, all the BJP MLAs staged a walkout at 12.30 pm.

Later, after a few minutes, NC MLA Nazir Gurezi asked the Speaker to call them (BJP MLAs) back as they were registering a protest sitting on stairs outside the legislature.

The speaker authorised Gurezi to call them back. At around 1.02 pm, BJP MLAs returned to join the proceedings.

The speaker, in their absence, clarified his position by giving an account of the time allotted to all the parties. “For me, being custodian of the House, I don’t have any difference between the NC and BJP MLAs. They are equal to me,” Rather said.