Cong demands speaker, state BJP chief resign after U'khand FM's exit

Former Uttarakhand Assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal on Friday said the resignation of cabinet minister Premchand Agarwal was not enough and demanded the resignations of incumbent Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan and state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt also from their posts for not being fair to the hill people despite representing the hills themselves.

Agarwal, who held key portfolios like finance and parliamentary affairs in the Pushkar Singh Dhami cabinet, resigned after his "unparliamentary" remarks against the hill people during the Budget Session created a major controversy.

Kunjwal accused Speaker Bhushan of behaving in the House in a partisan manner like a political party leader despite occupying a constitutional post when the Agarwal episode was going on.

Daughter of former chief minister B C Khanduri, the Speaker is an MLA from Kotdwar.

"The Chair is supposed to be neutral. But her conduct was obviously partisan.

"She should have asked Agarwal to immediately take back his words and expunged it from the proceedings of the House but she did not. Her treatment of Lakhpat Singh Butola (Congress MLA from Badrinath) was also not fair as he was responding to Agarwal in a democratic manner," Kunjwal said at a press conference here.

Leader of Opposition and Congress MLA from Bajpur Yashpal Arya was also at the press conference. Arya is also a former speaker of the state Assembly.

When Butola was reacting to Agarwal's abusive reference to the hill people, the Speaker had asked him to take his seat as he had already made his point.

When he continued to speak, saying the insult of hill people could not be taken lightly, the Speaker asked him to leave the House if he so wished.

Butola left the House immediately after that.

"Agarwal has resigned. But the Speaker and the state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt should also be asked to resign for not being fair to the hill people despite being from the hills themselves," he said.

If their resignation is not taken, it will confirm the BJP's divisive policy of driving a wedge between the hills and the plains, he said.

Bhatt had called the protesters in the hills demanding Agarwal's resignation "sadak chhap".