Placard-wielding and slogan-shouting Congress members disrupted House proceedings even on the second day of the vote-on-account session of the state assembly.
Placard-wielding and slogan-shouting Congress members disrupted House proceedings even on the second day of the vote-on-account session of the state assembly on Wednesday, which later resulted in 16 party MLAs, out of 59 MLAs, being suspended from the House for rest of the session.
Among the 16 Congress members who were disrupting the governor from delivering the inaugural speech, were three former ministers, Anil Joshiyara, Raghavji Patel, Ramsinh Parmar, who raised placards against the governor criticising the government for the plight of diamond workers.
Amit Shah, minister of state for parliamentary affairs, moved a proposal in the House to suspend the Congress MLAs, saying that they have forced the governor to stop from delivering his speech which violates the constitutional code of conduct mandatory for the members of a House (during the speech of president in parliament, and also during the speech of governor).
Speaker Ashok Bhatt allowed minister Shah to move the proposal and put the proposal before the house to debate. “It’s a matter of serious indiscipline that the members did not respect the governor and stopped him from delivering the speech, which is why they must be suspended,” Shah argued in favour of suspension orders.
While the leader of opposition and senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil, Porbandar MLA Arjun Modhvadiya and other Congress MLAs opposed the suspension proposal, state health minister Jaynarayan Vyas and other ruling party members supported the proposal.
Gohil said that the governor has the prerogative and right to suspend any member of the House for any violation of code of conduct “but a minister cannot move a proposal”. “If the governor wished, he could have suspended the MLAs, but he has not done it,’’ said Gohil, adding: “Gujarat has the democratic tradition that even if the members oppose during the governor’s speech, they have not been suspended, except in 2000 when no one was suspended for disrupting the governor’s speech.”
He further said that the BJP members, when in opposition in the past, had snatched away the governor’s speech but they were not suspended. “Therefore, it will be against the tradition of the Gujarat assembly,” he said.
However, Speaker Bhatt said: “The state assembly want to set the ideal parliamentary traditions based on the constitutional rules so the serious misconduct on the part of the members like dishonoring the governor’s speech will not be allowed.” He called for oral voting to Shah’s proposal. Majority members supported the proposal, based on which the speaker suspended the Congress members.
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