Pandemonium in Odisha assembly, Opp calls govt vindictive

Pandemonium continued today in Odisha assembly, which has remained paralysed over the chitfund scam for over a week, as Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra called the government "vindictive" and the ruling BJD members protesting against it did not allow him to continue.
The pre-lunch session was washed out due to protest from opposition members who demanded resignation of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for not making a statement on the scam. Normalcy was restored in the afternoon session as Congress and BJP MLAs cooperated as per the decision at the all party meeting.
However, the House plunged into pandemonium as treasury bench members protested against Mishra referring to the government's attitude towards them.

When Mishra called the state government "vindictive", treasury bench members Pravat Biswal and Mahesh Sahu were on their feet and raised protests and Mishra could not proceed. This was followed by counter-protests from opposition members, who rushed to the well.
Mishra blaming the treasury bench for the disruption of proceedings for a week, said, "The government wants to give a message that no one should speak against it. They threaten opposition members and make arrangements to send opponents to jail."
"An old case of 2002 against me was reopened by the government and the assistant session judge court at Bolangir had been appealed to take action. The government action came only after I criticised it in the house. This shows how vindictive the state government is," he said, alleging that the government did not tolerate criticism from the Opposition.

Referring to Law Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo calling him "senile" a few days ago in the assembly, Mishra said, "They even do not have regret for using bad words against the opposition leader ... I did not make allegations against the government. I just put certain questions to the chief minister on the chitfund matter."
Mishra later clarified outside the house that Orissa High Court had quashed the case in 2008.