5 Maharashtra Congress MLAs suspended for two years

Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse on Wednesday demanded the suspension of 15 Congress MLAs who were allegedly part of the protesters who surrounded Maharashtra Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao’s car when he arrived to attend the joint session of the Assembly and the Council on Wednesday.

While his security guards escorted Mr. Rao from the car to the Council Hall where he was to address the joint session, two of them suffered minor injuries and the Governor sustained an injury in his hand.

House adjourned

Earlier, the House was adjourned twice after an uproar over the voice vote held in the Assembly to the pass the trust motion of the BJP-led government. New Speaker Haribhau Bagde called a meeting of leaders of all the parties and senior Ministers to solve the issue.

Tempers were running high even outside the Speaker’s cabin, where BJP MLA Girish Mahajan and Congress’s Abdul Sattar had a heated argument and had to be separated by other MLAs.

Following the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Mehta moved a motion in the Assembly seeking suspension of five Congress MLAs. Passed with voice vote, it suspended Rahul Bondre, Abdul Sattar, Jaikumar Gore, Virendra Jagtap and Amar Kale for the next two years.

“What is wrong in being aggressive? We did not hurt anyone and that was never our intention. The BJP government is working like a dictatorship and we will continue to fight against the injustice,” said Mr. Sattar after his suspension.

CCTV footage

Mr. Mehta later announced a committee headed by the Speaker and comprising leaders of all parties to study the CCTV footage from the cameras installed inside the Assembly.

“The report of this committee will be presented in the winter session and the possibility of revoking the suspension can be discussed after studying it,” he said.