Members of the Opposition BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) were involved in heated arguments in the Legislative Assembly on K. Kasturirangan committee report on Western Ghats on Wednesday, with the former urging the Speaker to allow them to make a preliminary submission and the latter demanding that their leader H.D. Kumaraswamy be allowed to speak first.
JD(S) members led by Y.S.V. Datta trooped into the well of the House to stage a dharna when Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa asked BJP members to come up with their submission on the report.
When BJP members alleged that the JD(S) was impervious to the issue, Mr. Kumaraswamy said his party too was concerned about the matter. As repeated appeals by the Speaker to JD(S) members to resume their seats went unheeded, Mr. Kumaraswamy appealed to his party members to call off their protest, paving the way for BJP leaders to make their submission. BJP member Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri said the State government had not taken the report seriously as creation of ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs), according to the report recommendation, would seriously jeopardise the lives of people living in the Western Ghats area. December 15 was the deadline for the State to file a report in the Supreme Court on the issue, he said.
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Minister for Higher Education R.V. Deshpande raised objections to Mr. Kageri’s statement that the State government was doing nothing to apprise the Supreme Court on the impact of the implementation of the report.