The Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Assembly B.B.L. Butail on Tuesday prematurely adjourned the House after treasury benches themselves moved a resolution and forced for the adjournment despite strong resistance by the opposition. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh recommended that since there is no business left because of non-participation by opposition, the monsoon session that was supposed to end on August 29 should be adjourned. But the opposition members who had agreed to attend the House today, after the boycott earlier, at the persuasion of Speaker B.B.L. Butail were taken by surprise when the Parliamentary Affairs Minister moved the resolution for a sine-die adjournment.
The Speaker who was persuading both the sides for debate and discussion inside the House from past four days again did his level best to diffuse the crises and said that he cannot go against the “sense of the House”just like that and needs time to go through the rules for the abrupt adjournment of the House midway in the session. He tried to convince the treasury benches that there are important bills like Lokayukta, Town and Country Planning and others to be discussed and passed in the coming days so they should review there resolution for adjournment. The Speaker while wanting to resolve the crises at any cost announced the adjournment of House for next day.
But the Chief Minister insisted and reminded the Speaker that he cannot go against the decision of majority in the House. Following the intervention by some senior members the House was again reconvened after the lunch and the Speaker had to accept the sine-die adjournment.
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This has happened for the first time in the history of the assembly of the small hill State when the session has to be called of halfway and when the House is not able to complete its required 35 sittings in a year.
Earlier in another shocking development the Agriculture and Power Minister Sujan Singh Pathania refused to reply a question posed by Vinod Kumar of BJP. He was thrice asked by the Speaker but he preferred to walk out. The opposition created a big controversy out of it and expressed surprise when the Chief Minister tried to reply the question instead. The opposition that had decided to boycott all communication and replies by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh preferred to walk out. The opposition members did not ask the particular questions which were to be replied by the Chief Minister.
There were heated exchanges between the Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition accusing each other for killing the entire session. Mr. Singh blamed Mr. Dhumal for using the opposition for settling his personal scores and diverting attention from the cases he is facing. Where as Mr. Dhumal challenged the Chief Minister to discuss any of his case in the House so that truth can come out. He said he had promised to the Speaker that he would not discuss the sub-judice money laundering cases of Mr. Singh and the regular revelations by the Income Tax Department on Singh’s revised IT returns in the press and media. He requested the infuriated Chief Minister to learn patience to hear the criticism in a democracy.
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Mr. Dhumal said boycotting Ministers was a common practice adopted by Congress earlier. He reminded them how former Health Minister Rajiv Bindal and MLA Rakesh Pathania were boycotted by the Congress when in opposition. The then Central Minister Shibu Soren was also boycotted in the parliament; he reminded the Chief Minister who was perturbed by his boycott by the opposition.