Bedlam in Tripura assembly, CM prevented from entering house

Bedlam prevailed in Tripura assembly on Thursday, the last day of its three-day session, after Trinamool Congress's student wing supporters held a black-flag protest and prevented Chief Minister Manik Sarkar from entering the house.

Uproarious scenes in the assembly over a resolution to condemn what happened outside the house also forced Deputy Speaker Pabitra Kar to adjourn it twice and disrupted normal functioning for about an hour.

After the protest, police arrested around 70 protestors who were led by Viki Prashad.

Chaos erupted in the house when ruling Left Front's Chief Whip Basudeb Majumder moved a motion to condemn Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad activists who waved black flags at Sarkar while he was trying to enter the complex that houses the assembly and the civil secretariat.

The Chhatra Parishad were protesting over the mysterious death of a polytechnic student Anwara Chowdhury, 16, on April 10 at the Govind Ballabh Pant Government Medical College and Hospital here.

"The Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad actions are most undemocratic as they prevented the Chief Minister who was on way to the assembly," Majumder told the house and requested the Deputy Speaker to allow the assembly to adopt a resolution to condemn the same.

PWD and Health Minister Badal Chowdhury said: "The TMC has unleashed a semi-fascist rule in West Bengal and resorted to series of violence to curb democratic movement in that state. They are trying to propagate the same unruly method in Tripura."

Other ministers and legislators from the treasury benches stood up to vociferously condemn the protest.

The opposition Congress and TMC legislators, however, strongly protested against the motion and maintained that the protest and blocking the way of Sarkar took place outside the assembly complex and hence no resolution could be taken up on the issue.

Protesting against the Deputy Speaker's decision to adopt the resolution, TMC and Congress MLAs rushed to the Speaker's podium five times and shouted slogans against the Left Front government and the Tripura Chief Minister.

Congress Legislature Party leader Gopal Roy, TMC state unit President Ashish Saha, and party's key leader Sudip Roy Barman urged for withdrawal of the resolution.

Deputy Speaker Kar rejected repeated appeals of the opposition, leading to utter chaos.

Some opposition legislators, during the melee, stood atop the table of assembly Secretary Bamdeb Majumder who sits in front of the Speaker's podium.

Amid the chaos, the Deputy Speaker said the act was highly condemnable in a parliamentary democracy and announced the adoption of the resolution moved by the Chief Whip of the Left Front.

--IANS

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