On Day 1, BJP attacks government in Assembly over farmers' arrest

The state government came under fire from the BJP in the Legislative Assembly on Monday over the arrest of farmers, who were heading towards the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha here to stage a protest seeking fair and remunerative prices for sugar cane.

Raising the issue in the Assembly on the first day of the winter session of the legislature, Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar likened the act of the government to that of Mohammad-bin-Tughlaq administration.

He demanded that the government immediately release the farmers. He said the government was anti-farmer and he hadn’t seen such a government in the past. Protesting the arrest of the farmers, the BJP members rushed into the well of the House and demanded immediate release of all the arrested farmers.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said farmers were arrested to ensure that they do not block the national highway and, the police have been directed to release them. Instructions were issued to the police around 9.30 am to release the farmers.

‘Documents in Marathi’
Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES)-backed MLAs Aravind Patil and Sambhaji Patil demanded that the government provide official documents in Marathi. However, after members cutting across party lines opposed them, the two MLAs who were sporting saffron-turbans walked out of the House.

After the Question Hour, the two MLAs stood up and demanded that the documents be presented in Marathi instead of Kannada. Aravind Patil who was making the demand was opposed by other members. Speaker K B Koliwad asked to members take their seats as he had not permitted them to speak.

Members from the treasury and Opposition benches opposed the demand and asked the two MLAs to speak in Kannada as they know the language very well. With their demand not met, Aravind Patil and Sambhaji Patil staged a walkout.

Revenue Minister Kagodu Thimmappa told the Assembly that the process has begun to simplify the administration of Revenue department and make its offices across the state paperless.

Replying to Balakrishna C N during the Question Hour, Thimmappa said that as the process was on to make offices paperless, incorporating corrections in record of rights of properties has become difficult and the same would be done later.

Earlier, Koliwad moved obituary references to condole the death of former legislators G Basavanneppa and S K Dasappa, senior journalist Girish Nikam and the victims of the Sunday’s Indore-Patna Express train accident in Uttar Pradesh.