Day two of the Delhi Assembly’s Budget session started with protests by the Opposition BJP over the presence of Minister and disqualified MLA Kailash Gahlot, and led to the suspension of one BJP MLA for the rest of the session.
Speaker Ram Niwas Goel suspended BJP MLA Om Prakash Sharma for the remainder of the session, which started on March 16 and will go on till March 28.
The Speaker was acting on a motion brought by Aam Aadmi Party MLA Somnath Bharti that sought Mr. Sharma’s suspension for threatening AAP MLAs with police action. Referring to the demonstration of an EVM-like machine in the House by AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj last year, Mr. Sharma said the police would take action against AAP MLAs for “making fake machines”.
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Mr. Sharma said he was dispelled from the House for raising “issues related to the people”, while Mr. Gahlot, who was aomng 20 AAP MLAs disqualified in January for holding an office of profit, was allowed to attend in an “undemocratic manner”.
Continuing the BJP protest against Mr. Gahlot’s presence in the House, the BJP MLA alleged he was deliberately targeted for protesting against the “autocratic manner” in which the Assembly was continuing in this respect.