Opposition MLA’s protest outside Speaker’s office inside Kerala assembly in Thiruvananthapuram on March 15, 2023, Wednesday
| Photo Credit: ANI
The Kerala Legislative Assembly adjourned nine minutes after it convened on Friday following raucous protests by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) opposition.
Opposition legislators vociferously condemned the government for slapping non-bailable criminal charges against UDF members, including women MLAs, for their protest in front of the office of Speaker A. N. Shamsheer on Wednesday.
Opposition Leader V. D. Satheesan said the Speaker’s recurrent denial of the UDF’s rule 50 notices for adjournment debates on matters of pressing public importance warranted the protest.
Chief Minister’s ‘duplicity’
Nevertheless, a set of watch and ward officials and ruling front MLAs attacked the opposition legislators who were staging a sit-in demonstration outside the Speaker’s to protect their Parliamentary Privilege.
He said that hours before Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called the opposition for a reconciliatory meeting in the Speaker’s chamber on Thursday, the State police booked UDF legislators on severe criminal charges that offered little scope for bail and entailed a punishment of more than ten years of rigorous imprisonment.
Mr. Satheesan accused Mr. Vijayan of duplicity. He said the police, at the behest of their political masters, booked UDF legislators for rioting, attacking law enforcers on duty and criminal trespass.
The police overlooked the injuries inflicted on opposition MLAs by their ruling front counterparts and imposed lenient charges on the attack’s perpetrators, including a few wardens.
Demand for compromise
Mr. Satheesan stated that a detente between the government and the opposition was beyond the bounds of possibility until the government withdrew the bogus charges, and the Speaker took to task the ruling front MLAs and watch and ward officials responsible for maltreating UDF members.
He said compromise was only possible once the government recognised the inviolability of the rule 50 notice for spotlighting public issues. “Allowing a discussion on the notice was mandatory. It was not the Chief Minister’s charity or the government’s concession to the opposition,” Mr. Satheesan said.
In vain, Mr. Shamsheer requested the opposition to allow the question hour. He said the chair had no recourse but to adjourn the House for the day and reconvene on Monday (March 20).
LDF hits back
Later, two Communist Party of India (Marxist) legislators, Sachin Dev and H. Salam, called a press conference at the Assembly’s media room to deny the opposition’s charge that they had assaulted UDF legislators, chiefly Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader K. K. Rema, MLA.
(Ms. Rema sustained a fractured arm on Wednesday’s brawl in front of the Speaker’s office and was at the House with her upper limb in a cast.)
The MLAs, ostensibly quoting wound certificate statements, said Ms. Rema sustained the injury when the watch and ward removed her from the scene of the sit-in-protest.
At a separate press conference, CPI(M) State secretary M. V. Govindan said Congress had unleashed anarchy in the Assembly to cover up the mutiny in its ranks against the leadership of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran and Mr. Satheesan.
“Seven Congress MPs from Kerala have written to the party high command expressing a clear lack of confidence in the State leadership,” he said.
