The stalemate over Congress-led Opposition’s boycott of the special session of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly has taken a rather unsavoury turn with Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani telling mediapersons on Thursday that he has received seven privilege notices against Congress MLAs accused of making lose comments at a woman MLA and a few other ruling party legislators on Wednesday.
The privilege notices were moved after some Congress MLAs sitting on protest at the entrance to the state Assembly had started passing lose comments at BJP MLAs, Lalita Yadav, Vijay Pal Singh, Khuman Singh Shivaji and Babulal Verma on Wednesday.
Ms Yadav even started crying in the House later during the day and the Speaker could not stop the tears.
The Speaker told journalists that the comments by the Congress MLAs were obscene and amounted to belittling human dignity.
On the Congress MLAs clarification that they had said nothing unparliamentary, the Speaker quipped, “If this was really the case, why a woman MLA would cry in the House?”
Seven privilege notices have been received, he said adding that action would be taken on them on merit. The Speaker said that he would be firm when it comes to discharging his duties.
“I am not sad because the Congress MLAs, who are boycotting the House, have decided to hold a parallel mock session. What has hurt me is the kind of comments that have been made,” he observed.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan described it as a black day and said action should be taken against those responsible for the act.
Raising the pitch further on the current imbroglio, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has given a memorandum to state governor Rameshwar Thakur demanding the immediate removal of deputy speaker of the state assembly Harvansh Singh as he was boycotting the House along with other Opposition MLAs. The memorandum was given to the governor by the state BJP president Prabhat Jha.