Five Left legislators suspended in Kerala

The Kerala assembly Monday passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy suspending five Left legislators for the rest of the session for unruly conduct on Friday.

The five are E.P. Jayarajan, K.T. Jaleel, K. Ajith, V. Sivan Kutty and K. Kunhammad.

The assembly witnessed unruly scenes on Friday as Left members broke the speaker's chair and the electronic equipment on his desk to register their protest against Finance Minister K.M. Mani, who they did not want to present the budget, calling him corrupt.

On Monday, when the session started, everything appeared calm.

After the hour-long question hour ended, speaker N. Sakthan said Friday's events in and outside the assembly made everyone hand their heads in shame. He then invited various party leaders for a discussion.

After two hours, the house reconvened. Chandy announced that it had been decided to suspend the five Left legislators.

"In a democracy everyone has a right to protest but it has to be done within limits of civility and decency," he said.

A furious V.S. Achuthanandan, the opposition leader and a former chief minister, condemned the arbitrary attitude of the speaker and the government in going ahead with the decision.

"We disagree with this one-sided action. Why is that you did not take any action against your legislators who outraged the modesty of five lady legislators that day?

"We had warned that the situation will be tough if you allow Mani to present the budget... The two people who are responsible for this are Mani

and Chandy," he said.

After that, the entire opposition trooped into the well of the house. Despite requests from the speaker and Chandy, the five suspended legislators refused to leave the house.

Amid the din, Chandy moved a resolution to suspend the sitting for the

entire week.

He also asked the speaker to expunge the unparliamentarily words of Achuthanandan. The media was asked not to report the expunged part of his speech.

Later, Achuthanandan said the Left would continue its protests till Mani

resigned.