The Samajwadi Party and Bhartiya Janata Party members almost came to blows in the UP assembly on Friday after a senior minister rebuked a BJP legislator.
Though the House was immediately adjourned, the BJP members stormed into the well of the house and the SP ministers also barged in.
A scuffle ensued and Congress MLA Pramod Tiwari and SP minister Pandit Singh pulled the warring factions apart.
Trouble began when BJP MLA Suresh Rana, an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, was giving his clarification in the assembly and refuting the charges levelled against him.
The BJP MLA pointed towards the involvement of some ruling party members in the Muzaffarnagar riots when the members in the treasury benches attempted to shout him down.
Suresh Rana’s speech was disrupted and he asked the Speaker to give him more time to explain the situation before the house when Mr Choudhury objected.
BJP MLA Upendra Tiwari, who defeated Ambica Choudhury in the 2012 elections, came out in support of Suresh Rana and Mr Choudhury then told Mr Tiwari to “shut up and get lost”.
At this, all the BJP legislators stormed towards the Speaker’s chair in protest and what followed was a free-for-all with SP and BJP MLAs jostling and hitting each other out of the way. Two SP ministers, Tej Narain Pandey and Narad Rai, were seen pushing the BJP legislators who were demanding an apology from the minister.
Hukum Singh, leader of the BJP legislator party and an accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, also got into a fight with minister Narad Rai.
However, Pramod Tiwari of the Congress and some others pulled the warring groups apart and normalcy was restored.
When the house reassembled, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari asked the Speaker to ignore the spat and pleaded with both the warring groups to forget the ugliness of the situation and begin afresh.
Mr Hukum Singh of BJP said that the minister responsible for the incident should tender an apology and the derogatory words should be expunged from the proceedings. BSP leader Swami Prasad Maurya said that such incidents would send a wrong message among the people.
Ambica Choudhury, thereafter, said that if his utterances upset anyone, he was prepared to apologise for the same.