Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta met Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung on Friday over what he said were attempts to harass the Opposition in the House and submitted a memorandum complaining that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were “misusing the privileged forum”.
Mr. Gupta complained that BJP MLAs were “not allowed to speak in the assembly” and that points of order raised by them were “ignored”.
“They [BJP MLAs] are thrown out of the Assembly when they try to raise their voice in the Vidhan Sabha on public issues and the Committee of Privileges is being misused to muzzle our voice,” Mr. Gupta said.
The LoP added that a notice had been issued to him by the Deputy Secretary of the Assembly Secretariat asking him to appear before the Committee of Privileges on December 2 in the matter of breach of privilege for allegedly casting aspersions on the Members of the Rajya Sabha and calling for abolition of the House in a newspaper article.
Unconditional apology
This, Mr. Gupta said, was in spite of the fact that he had already tendered an unconditional apology in the matter to the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
“Notices have been issued against me despite my apology having been accepted and the matter closed by the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Earlier BJP MLA O. P. Sharma was debarred from attending the session of the Vidhan Sabha for almost one year,” Mr. Gupta said.
The LoP further said that the session of the House was divided in five parts so that Mr. Sharma was “unable to represent the people of Delhi in the Assembly as long as Mr. Kejriwal and Mr. Sisodia wanted.”
