Tripura budget presented amid bedlam

AGARTALA - Proceedings in the Tripura assembly were repeatedly disrupted Friday while the budget for 2010-11 was being presented as opposition protested over the speaker’s rejection of their adjournment motion for a discussion on the alleged corruption of the ruling Left Front.

On the advice of Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath, Finance Minister Badal Chaudhury laid the budget before the house, after reading just two pages of his 48-page budget speech.

The pandemonium began immediately after the question hour on the opening day of the three-week long budget session when the speaker rejected the adjournment motion, seeking a day-long discussion on the alleged “corruption in various levels of the Left Front government” after suspending the scheduled proceedings of the house.

Slogan-shouting Congress legislators led by Leader of Opposition Ratan Lal Nath rushed towards the speaker’s podium, demanding resignation of tainted ministers and an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the reported financial irregularities in the government exchequer.

As the uproarious scene continued, the speaker adjourned the house two times.

Three personnel of the watch and ward staff and two Congress legislators sustained injury during the scuffle between them.

Congress legislator Sudip Roy Barman was suspended by the speaker.

“I have suspended the MLA as he used unparliamentary words, and for his unruly behaviour and his preventing proceedings of the house,” the speaker told the house.

The house started its normal proceedings at 3 p.m. after the entire opposition - the Congress and the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) members - staged a noisy walkout protesting speaker’s decision to suspend the member.