Eshwarappa’s adjournment motion move leads to heated debate
The issue of whether to allow an adjournment motion moved by Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council K.S. Eshwarappa seeking Minister K.G. George’s resignation gave a noisy start to the proceedings of the Legislative Council in Belagavi, consuming the first half of Monday and forcing adjournment till 3 p.m.
The Council witnessed an interesting debate albeit with noisy interruptions with the senior members differing on issues like whether the adjournment motion could be taken up before question hour, whether BAC (Business Advisory Committee) is supreme to the House, and whether point of order described as member’s right should be always allowed. This ultimately led to heated debate, sloganeering and dharna by the BJP members in the well of the House, forcing an adjournment.
After the condolence motion was moved and the House observed silence to mourn the demise of eminent personalities who passed away recently, Mr. Eshwarappa sought time to speak on the adjournment motion he had moved. The Congress members opposed it and urged the the Chair to allow it after the question hour.
While BJP members K.B. Shanappa, Ganesh Karnik, and Arun Shahapur sought it to be taken first, Minister Priyank Kharge, Congress members K.C. Kondaiah and Ivan D’souza took exception to it, with Minister Ramesh Kumar appealing to the Chair to go as per the rules.
Chairman of the Legislative Council D.H. Shankarmurthy intervened to clarify that the issue was discussed at length during the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting after which it was decided to allow the member moving the adjournment motion to speak for 5 to 8 minutes on the motion. After V.S. Ugrappa of Congress took exception to it and sought to know whether BAC was supreme or House, Mr. Murthy clarified that the BAC decision was subsequently placed before the House and approved.
Senior member Basavaraj Horatti of the JD(S) also intervened to say it was the prerogative of the Chair to allow initial remarks on the adjournment motion before allowing or rejecting it. Puttanna and Ramachandre Gowda appealed to members not to waste time on it as already much discussion had taken place.
Strong reaction
However, after Mr, Eshwarappa was permitted to speak on the adjournment motion for 5 to 8 minutes, his remark that the Supreme Court had censured the State government in the case of death of DySP M.K. Ganapathy led to strong reaction from Congressmen, particularly from Mr. Ramesh Kumar who raised a point of order saying that Mr. Eshwarappa should stick to the notice on adjournment motion he had served.
When Mr. Eshwarappa resumed his words, Mr. Ugrappa raised another point of order. Then it was the turn of former Minister S.R Patil to interrupt and appeal to the Chairman to ask Mr. Eshwarappa to speak only on the tenability of the motion rather than going into the merits of the issue.
After Mr. Ugrappa insisted that the Chairman should either allow or dismiss the point of order before allowing Mr. Eshwarappa to continue, Mr. Horatti intervened to say it was the prerogative of the Chair to allow point of order or not.
When Mr. Eshwarappa passed comments on the State government quoting Supreme Court observations, the Congress members raised immediate objection, which made BJP members to raise their voice and enter into an argument with them. As the war of words continued, the BJP members rushed to the well and staged a dharna alleging that the Congressmen were trying to snuff the Opposition voice on the pretext of point of order. As the chaos continued the Chairman adjourned proceedings till 3 p.m.
