JOIN USCold vibes mark end of winter session
Speaker K G Bopaiah adjourned the House sine die cutting short the scheduled 11-day session to only six days. The House was scheduled to meet till January 20. Except for an obituary reference to former members, the Opposition did not participate in proceedings of the House.
Members of the Opposition parties that have been on a warpath over the land scam issue, created ruckus even during the Governor’s address to the joint session of the Legislature. Later, they insisted that an adjournment motion on land scam and corruption issues be taken up before other official business, which was opposed by the Treasury benches.
However, the ruling party went ahead with the official business in the last two days and ensured that about 10 important Bills, including the Appropriation Bill, Karnataka University (Amendment) Bill, BWSSB (Amendment) Bill and the Karnataka Civil Services (Transfer of Medical Doctors and Paramedical staff) amendment bill, were passed.
The ruling party used the session to table two House committee reports -- Appachu Ranjan committee report and Hemachandra Sagar committee report -- that enable the Speaker to disqualify Opposition members for their alleged unruly behaviour in the House.
Without customary reply
But the House failed to discuss the Governor's speech, and the motion of thanks in this regard was adopted without the customary reply by the Chief Minister.
Though Yeddyurappa was present in the House at the time of adopting the motion, he did not volunteer to reply. Only two legislators - Siddu Savadi and C T Ravi - had spoken on behalf of the ruling BJP when the motion was taken up for discussion on Wednesday.
The House, on the last day, also witnessed a spat between the Speaker and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah. When the latter charged the Speaker of not trying to break the ice, a visibly angry Bopaiah sought to know from Siddaramaiah why his party boycotted the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting.
“You expect me to maintain order in the House, and at the same time do not cooperate by boycotting the BAC meeting,” Bopaiah said. Siddaramaiah replied that the resolutions of various BAC meetings were never implemented.
The Legislative Council is scheduled to meet on Friday.