A ruckus created by Congress MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy just when Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was about to commence his reply to the debate on Motion of Thanks to the Governor’s Address in the Assembly saw Mr. Rao making a case for the expulsion of the MLA from the membership of the House on Saturday.
Mr. Rao sent sheaves of papers to Speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy to consider them as evidence of misleading the House when it came to expelling Mr. Rajagopal Reddy.
Earlier, the entire Congress group was suspended from the House for the day following Mr. Reddy’s outburst against the Chief Minister over an incident involving filing of nomination by a Congress leader from Nalgonda in the election of Directors of MARKFED.
Confusion reigned from sometime as Legislative Affairs Minister V. Prashant Reddy moved the motion for suspension of Mr. Rajagopal Reddy alone but all the remaining five members of Congress were also asked to leave.
Mr. Rao described the showdown by Congress as nothing but an attempt to “literally run away” from the address that he was going to make. In fact, Mr. Rao lost his cool with Mr. Rajagopal Reddy twice when the latter remarked that they had not come to listen to his speech.
Replying to Mr. Rajagopal Reddy’s charge that the Mission Bhagiratha programme of supplying safe drinking water to all households had made tardy progress, Mr. Rao produced evidence of the MLA affixing signature to the resolutions of gram panchayats in his constituency of Munugode wherein it was highlighted that all the 12,000 odd houses in 334 habitations had received water under the programme.
Mr. Rao demanded stern action against the MLA for misleading the House and requested the Speaker to consider if such a member was allowed to continue. There was no place for such scenes by the MLA in the Assembly. The government would have been helpless in the absence of these papers, he said and sent the papers containing resolutions and the MLA’s signature to the Speaker.
He requested the Speaker to consider if the members should be asked to “prove or perish” if they made allegations against the government. A new rule was needed to bar members from making sweeping statements. It was high time the House took up the matter seriously.
