Wednesday, March 14, 2012

JKCA multi crore scam rocks legislature

Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA) multi-crore scam rocked the proceedings of Legislative Assembly consecutively on the second day today.

The bedlam prevailed at least for half an hour. During that period, the House witnessed mud-slinging and sloganeering contest between the legislators of National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on this issue and a separate slug-fest between NC MLA Peer Afaq and MLA Langate Abdul Rashid Engineer (though on a different issue) which finally culminated with the marshalling out of the latter.

JKCA issue figured Tuesday morning as soon as the House assembled for the day’s proceedings with the Question Hour.

Interestingly the issue was first raised by NC legislators at an aggressive note which evoked an equal response from PDP MLAs, thus plunging the entire House into disorder. NC members were seeking expunging of remarks, allegations against their president by PDP president and other members in the House on Monday. PDP members opposed it and reiterated their demand for action in JKCA scam.

Congress and other opposition members watched in complete silence this chaotic sequence, except for a brief intervention by BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma.

Question Hour could proceed peacefully only after Speaker Mohammed Akbar Lone was able to restore a semblance of order in the House with the directions to expunge remarks/allegations against NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah and an un-parliamentary slugfest between Peer Afaq and Abdul Rashid Engineer.
Earlier, bedlam prevailed in the House after the Advisor to the Chief Minister, Mubarak Gul at the very outset of the Question Hour voiced his concern over, what it was described as, “repeated attempts of opposition PDP to malign the image of NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah on one pretext or the other.”
Raising the issue in the Legislative Assembly, Gul said since Dr Farooq was not member of either of the House of the Legislature besides, the allegations levelled against him could not be debated in the House as per the business rules. Hence, he demanded for expunging the debate on the JKCA issue from the records of the Assembly Secretariat.
While he was speaking, almost all NC members including were on feet, gathered in between the front row. Among the ministers, the Minister of State for Home Nasir Aslam Wani and MoS Javed Dar too were standing during the commotion besides Gul.
As Gul finished, his senior party colleague Chowdhary Mohammed Ramzan too endorsed his point stating that PDP members without knowing the facts, levelled baseless allegations against the party president and thus their remarks/allegations should be expunged from the recorded proceedings of the House.

NC MLA Nazir Ahmed Gurezi took a dig at the PDP members stating, “Daaka Kisne Daala…..State Accountability Commission (SAC) Mein Cases Kiske Khilaf Darz Thay….”

In the meanwhile NC members pointing towards PDP desks started raising slogans “Chor Machaye Shor…”. This continued for at least five minutes and then PDP members led by their president Mehbooba Mufti started thumping of desks saying whatever slogans NC MLAs were raising, approved of their own (NC legislators’) action.  

NC legislators continued raising slogans “Sach Ka Bolbaala, Jhooth Ka Munh Kaala.” While this was going on, the Speaker admonished NC members saying that this was not proper. “Since the treasury benches are indulging into all this, it indicates that the ruling party is not interested in running this House smoothly,” he said.
In the meanwhile at around 10.11 AM, PDP members too were on feet raising slogans, “We want discussion,” “Gali Gali Mein Shor Hai Yeh Sarkar Chor Hai…”

At this point of time, NC MLA Mir Saifullah rose to point out that as per rules, no discussion could be held on this issue as the person referred to was not the member of the House. NC members countered PDP’s slogans with a new bout of slogans, “PDP Hai-Hai”, “Kundal Report Ka Chor Kaun…..”

Upon this, the Speaker pointing towards both the sides said, “It seems that you’ve no concern for public issues.”
In the meanwhile, BJP’s Jugal Kishore Sharma, while addressing the chair, intervened, “Speaker Sir, take a decision on this account (discussion) as both the sides are creating ruckus and disturbing the proceedings of the House.”

Speaker, while trying to persuade both the sides, asked the agitating legislators to take their seats and said, “This is an established fact that that a person who is not a member of the House and is not himself present in the House, the issues related to him should not be discussed. I know the treasury benches are raising this issue. Person, who cannot defend himself, cannot be discussed. This is not right and fair.” He then gave directions to expunge the remarks/allegations levelled against NC president in the proceedings of Monday and Tuesday.

As this issue settled down, MLA Langate raised the issue of SHRC recommendation about Kunanposhpora rape victims and the House was a witness to yet another chaotic sequence in the form of scuffle between Engineer and Peer Afaq, which culminated only when MLA Langate was marshaled out.

No comments:

Post a Comment