STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Uproarious scenes were witnessed in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Tuesday as the opposition cornered the Speaker over his remarks on slogans raised on Monday by Congress MLAs.
Speaker Kavinder Gupta had said the opposition had lowered the prestige of the House by raising anti-national slogans of “Kashmir banega Pakistan (Kashmir will become Pakistan)” on Monday.
Strongly denying the charge, the opposition members disrupted the question hour by resorting to sloganeering while some of them trooped into the Well of the House asking the Speaker to take back his remarks.
Congress Legislative Party leader Nawang Rigzin Jora denied that any “anti-national” slogans were raised or unparliamentary language used against the Speaker.
Jora, however, said that the party had accused Gupta of being communal and an RSS man.
CPI(M) MLA M Y Tarigami said no member in the House had resorted to such slogans, adding that such remarks should not have come from the Chair. He also requested the Speaker to take back his remarks.
Jora had on Monday said the Congress MLAs were raising slogans like “PDP ka kya farman, Kashmir banega kabristan (what is PDP’s call, Kashmir should become a graveyard)” and “PDP ki kya pehachan, Kashmir banega Nagpur (what is PDP’s identity, Kashmir will become Nagpur, a reference to RSS headquarters)”.
He had said these remarks were misinterpreted by the Speaker, while threatening to move a no-confidence motion against him along with other opposition parties.
Intervening in the house, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said the opposition members should not raise any question mark on the Chair by using certain words. “The opposition should not say so,” he said, requesting the Speaker to give a proper ruling and resolve the issue.
Amid the uproar and protests which continued for more than 40 minutes, the speaker said, “If I have heard anything in wrong connotation I take my words back.”
On this, Jora thanked the Speaker for showing magnanimity by taking back his words and restoring order in the House.
