Vacant treasury benches: Basavaraj Horatti adjourns Karnataka Legislative Council session

Bengaluru: Legislative Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti adjourned and left the House for 10 minutes after finding that most of the treasury benches were empty at the start of the afternoon session on Tuesday.

When the session reconvened for the second half of the day around 3.15 pm, and MLC AH Vishwanath was about to speak, Horatti was disappointed that only one minister (Madhu Bangarappa) was there.

“Ministers are not there, what do I do? Ministers are needed, right? Session will be adjourned for 10 minutes.”

After the House reconvened, Horatti expressed his displeasure. “Chief whip (Saleem Ahmed), if treasury bench legislators are not there, why should we have the session? Why do they come? What does this mean? I don’t like it.”

Horatti’s move comes a day after Legislative Assembly Speaker U T Khader adjourned and left the House after being disappointed with the government for answering only 84 of the 230 unstarred questions.

While Chief Whip of the Opposition N Ravikumar rued that the government was not adequately answering questions and sought cooperation from the treasury benches, Congress MLC Ramesh Babu said the chairman was experienced enough to correct the government and urged Ravikumar to not escalate the issue.

Cut-off box - 54 answers to 221 questions on Tuesday A day after Speaker U T Khader walked out of the Assembly the government on Tuesday tabled only 54 answers to 221 ‘unstarred’ questions followed by an assurance that this will improve Wednesday onward.

“It was only on Monday that the CM issued strict directions to officials that answers must be provided. Perhaps this will be set right from Wednesday” Home Minister G Parameshwara said. Khader read out a long list of departments to inform the Assembly how many questions they have answered.