The demands for grants by various departments were passed by Telangana Assembly without a debate on the last day for voting on Wednesday in the face of an unrelenting Congress sticking to its stand that Power Minister G. Jagdish Reddy tender an apology to its MLA G. Chinna Reddy over some nasty remarks by the former.
With the Congress MLAs continuing the protest in the well of the House for the best part of the proceedings, even Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Kadiyam Srihari could not reply to demands on education which were abruptly closed on Tuesday evening. The House sat till late hours for the second consecutive day.
Leader of Opposition K. Jana Reddy urged Speaker S. Madhusudana Chary to ask Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to attend the Assembly session to break the impasse. Mr. Rao could see the video footage of the conversation between the Minister and the Congress MLA and decide the necessary steps, he said.
However, Legislative Affairs Minister T. Harish Rao said that the Chief Minister was busy in a meeting of public importance and said there was no point in seeing the footage as the Minister had expressed regrets and even withdrew his remarks. Mr. Jana Reddy accused the treasury benches of taking extreme stands in the House on the strength of its numbers.
The Speaker offered the Congress several opportunities to express their grievance but to no avail. The party solely demanded an unconditional apology from the Minister. But, the Minister offered to apologise or regret remarks only after listening to what Mr. Chinna Reddy had to say.
As the stalemate continued, Mr. Jagdish Reddy offered to withdraw his remarks and expressed regrets but that was not enough to appease the Congress. The Minister blamed the Congress for not accepting his offer and alleged that the party had other ideas.
