Gandhinagar, March 13 (PTI): As many as 28 Congress MLAs were today suspended from the Gujarat Assembly for a day and 15 of them evicted from the House after they created a ruckus over the suspension of senior party member Virji Thumar.
However, Speaker Rajendra Trivedi, who suspended the opposition MLAs in the first half, revoked the suspension in the second half after the Congress’ chief whip, Amit Chavda, tendered an apology on behalf of his party colleagues.
There were chaotic scenes in the House when Agriculture Minister R C Faldu was speaking on the budgetary demands for his department.
Before Faldu’s speech, Thumar claimed in the House that the BJP government in Gujarat had not built a single dam during its 22-year rule.
As he took Thumar’s name in his speech, the Congress MLA stood up from his seat and started arguing with the minister.
The speaker repeatedly asked Thumar to sit down, but the Congress MLA continued with his verbal attack. At one point, he even dared the speaker to suspend him when Trivedi warned him of stern action for “indiscipline”.
Eventually, Trivedi suspended Thumar for the rest of the day, following which several Congress MLAs rushed into the Well, alleging “injustice” and “high-handedness” by the BJP.
As around 15 Congress MLAs sat in the Well, the Speaker first suspended them for the rest of the day and then called in the marshals to evict them.
Those standing in the Well were also suspended by the speaker. In all, 28 agitating Congress legislators were suspended for the rest of the day and the remaining 30-odd party MLAs present in the House staged a walkout.
He urged the speaker as well as the ruling party members to show a “big heart”, following which Trivedi revoked the suspension of all the Congress MLAs, including Thumar.
