J&K Speaker demands apology from PDP’s Para on cut motion remark — ‘shouldn’t have mislead the public’

After the Question Hour ended, the Speaker, referring to Para’s tweet, said that according to Rule 227 of the Business Conduct Rules, an MLA is required to submit cut motions three days before the presentation of grants in the House.

This comes a day after Para took to X to accuse the J&K government led by the National Conference of being “nothing but an extension of the Governor’s rule to ratify the August 5 move”.

Pointing out that 105 cut motions submitted by the member to grants of various departments — including those held by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah — have already been admitted, Speaker said some of his cut motions could not be included as these were received on the official email only a night before the grants were presented in the House.

The issue was brought up once again Wednesday after the Speaker said that he had received a notice from Para on his cut motions after the demand for grants was placed before the House and wondered how it could be taken up at that juncture.

“You are an educated member and you tried to mislead the media and the people with your remarks (on X). You should not have misled public opinion,” the Speaker said, asking him to apologise.

Para tried to counter this by stating that he had submitted his motions following the pattern used in the earlier grant presentation and that they had been included then.

“I sent the cut motions by email only after I found that some of them have not been included and when an official told me that these would not be included,” Para said.

This led to uproarious scenes in the Assembly, with members from the National Conference and an independent MLA asking him to name the official, prompting the People’s Conference MLA Sajad Gani Lone to intervene with a request to allow Para to speak. The Speaker, however, disallowed it.

In his tweet on Tuesday, Para said: “The J&K government is nothing but an extension of the Governor’s Rule to ratify the 5th August move. After 6 years of attacking LG’s rule, the ruling party now shamelessly defends it in the assembly. Opposition questions are ignored, and my questions in the cut motion on Law, Tourism, Culture, Estates, and GAD are deliberately erased. More answers can be obtained through the RTI Act than from this assembly. This government has ZERO respect for accountability & transparency”.