Govt gives in as BJP threatens to spend night in House for more days

“We had talks with CM who gave his consent for extending the Assembly session. The formal announcement will be done after a Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting,” state BJP president and MLA Laxmikant Bajpai said.

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He said Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey too assured him that the issues raised by BJP will be given ample time for discussion during the Assembly session. “Since our demands were met, we called off our dharna,” he said.

Earlier, the BJP leaders had decided to spend the night in the well of the House demanding 10 business days during the ongoing session, which began on August 14, and was planned with just six sittings. It claimed that while first day was adjourned after obituary reference, it was not possible to have a meaningful debate on problems related to the state in the remaining four days. The party’s demand for 10 business days included two-day discussion on law and order, two days for power crisis, two days to discuss other issues such as CBI probe against former Noida chief engineer Yadav Singh, alleged anomalies in appointments by the UP Public Service Commission and allegations against its chairman Anil Yadav, mining minister Gayatri Prajapati and Rs 1,000 crore check dam scam.

Earlier in the day, both the Houses had a stormy start and witnessed repeated adjournments with Opposition members, including those from BJP, BSP, RLD and Congress, trooping to the well raising slogans on poor law and order situation in the state and accusing the ruling Samajwadi Party of protecting the corrupt officials.

Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey assured them that the issues will be taken up during Zero Hour but the opposition members did not relent.

Amidst the din, the House was adjourned for 20 minutes and later till 12:20 pm with Question Hour being lost in pandemonium.

When the House re-assembled, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav presented the first supplementary budget amounting to Rs 19,284.98 crore for 2015-16. The Speaker then took up the business listed on the day’s agenda.

The BSP members returned to their seats on Speaker’s insistence but when Leader of the Opposition Swami Prasad Maurya tried to raise the issue of law and order, parliamentary affairs minister Azam Khan retorted saying ‘goonda raj’ and ‘loot’ was rampant during the previous BSP government. Khan said their sins will reduce their strength in the House drastically in the next election to barely three or four.

With BJP along with Congress and some other members continuing to sit in the well, the Speaker adjourn the House for the day.