TDP walks out after 3 MLAs suspended from AP Assembly

Former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said that the Jaganmohan Reddy government is becoming impatient each day, when it was being asked about the umpteen number of promises made during Reddy's padayatra.

"They (YSRCP) suspended a BC leader and introduced a BC Commission Bill in the house,” Naidu commented outside the Assembly, after the party members staged a walkout protesting the manner in which three of its deputy leaders were suspended for the rest of the ongoing budget session on Tuesday.

K Atchan Naidu, G Butchaiah Chowdary and N Rama Naidu were the three members suspended after Finance and legislative affairs Minister B Rajendranath Reddy proposed and Deputy Speaker Kona Raghupathi announced their suspension.

They were charged with disrupting the business of the House and physically lifted the legislators out of the house.

“The Opposition leader is trying to divert the attention of the people from a wonderful piece of legislation by creating ruckus in the house,” Chief Minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy alleged after the suspension.

The TDP MLAs were demanding that the CM keep his 2017 promise of reducing the minimum age for old age pensions from 60 to 45 years.

They said Jagan had made the promise in 2017, during his marathon padayatra. While the Chief Minister played the video in which he purportedly made the final announcement in 2018, the TDP members also sought permission to play videos that they brought to the house in a pen drive.

After the deputy refused to grant them permission, the suspended trio tried to reach out to the speaker to press their demand, prompting the action.

Later, Atchan Naidu said the speaker suspended him though he had not moved out of his seat. Butchaiah Chowdary said he had never faced this kind of treatment in any of the six Assemblies he was present. “The Chief Minister is directing the whole show by his gestures, asking the speaker to throw us out,” Chowdary alleged.

“The Chair was permitting the government to play videos in the Assembly but denying the Opposition an opportunity to play videos or read out newspaper clippings,” Rama Naidu rued. However, the trio later met the deputy speaker at his chambers and requested him to lift the suspension.