Lucknow:
Lucknow, Jan 29 (PTI) The Budget Session of Uttar Pradesh legislature got off to a stormy start today as slogan-shouting opposition lawmakers disrupted Governor Ram Naik’s customary address to the joint sitting of the two Houses.
Rejecting the Governor’s appeal earlier that they listen to his address peacefully, opposition members belonging to BSP, Congress and RLD, but barring those from BJP, were up on their feet the moment Naik entered the House.
BSP members wearing blue caps (party colour) led the opposition charge with cries of ‘Governor go back’ with Congress members too holding up banners in the Well.
Some of the Congress legislators were wearing caps in their party colours and bearing pictures of their leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Slogans like ‘kanoon vyavastha dhwast hai, Akhilesh sarkar mast hai”, “bijli, pani durust karo, varna kursi khali karo” and “kisan virodhi SP sarkar, barkhast karo, barkhast karo” were raised by the opposition members, who also tried to rush towards the podium during the Governor’s speech.
Even as the address was drowned in the din, BJP members, however, did not leave their seats.
Asked why they had not joined the opposition parties in the protest, BJP leaders Suresh Khanna and Hriday Narain Dixit later said it was out of courtesy as the President of India had sent a letter in this regard.
“But that does not mean we accept all that has been written in the governor’s address,” they said.
Doing away with the usual practice of governors winding up their speech by merely reading the opening and concluding lines, Naik continued with his address for over 20 minutes and read the speech partially without showing any sign of hurry.
In his 110-page address in Hindi, the Governor spelt out the policies, programmes and achievements of the Akhilesh Yadav government.
Later, when the two Houses met separately, BSP continued the protest over the governor’s address and staged a walk out from the Assembly.
Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey adjourned the House till February 8 after hurriedly completing the days’s agenda.
