BELAGAVI: In a huge embarrassment to the BJP, a party MLA was caught surfing photographs on his cellphone during a serious debate on sugarcane pricing in the legislative assembly on Wednesday. TV footage showed Aurad legislator Prabhu Chavan zooming in on a photograph of Priyanka Gandhi , setting off a firestorm of criticism. As the TV clip went viral, leaving the BJP red-faced, legislative assembly speaker Kagodu Thimmappa said he was contemplating imposing a ban on mobiles in the assembly and would decide after a meeting on Monday. The BJP's discomfiture didn't end there.

Another party MLA, UB Banakar, from Hirekerur in Haveri, was found playing Candy Crush Saga on his mobile. Mobile phones are banned in the legislature. In February 2012, three BJP ministers — Laxman Savadi, Krishna J Palemar and CC Patil — were found watching porn in the assembly. They had to resign following the incident. On Wednesday, Chavan, 44, was found flipping his phone when the assembly was debating the sugarcane issue. JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy was speaking then. Unaware that TV crew, seated above the assembly hall, were zooming in on his activity, Chavan was caught surfing pictures — of his family, PM Narendra Modi and Priyanka Gandhi. While watching Priyanka clad in a white shirt and trousers, he zoomed in on the image. Later, he was seen showing the picture to his colleague L A Ravi Subramanya, BJP MLA from Basavanagudi. "We have a legacy. This will only make people say that we (BJP legislators) only do this," said a former minister as party leaders went into a huddle.

They counselled Chavan and Subramanya on how to tackle the issue before the media. In a damage-control exercise, Chavan told TOI: "I opened the phone as I got a message. I found Priyanka's picture while watching the photos of my family, Modi and yoga guru Baba Ramdev. As I couldn't read what was written at the bottom of the picture, I zoomed in on the text, not the image." Asked if it was right to use the phone inside the assembly, the MLA apologized. His equally flustered colleague Subramanya claimed that Chavan was showing family pictures. "He had invited me to his daughter's wedding which I couldn't attend. He showed me his family picture and said, 'Dekho, meri beti aur damad'.

This lasted three seconds. I asked him to switch off the mobile, and he obliged,'' claimed Subramanya. Earlier in the day, Chavan, from the Banjara community, had come to the assembly wearing a garland of ration cards and carrying a basket of cards on his head tied with a colourful pagdi. He wanted to highlight that ration cards were being misused. Security personnel removed the basket, but not the garland. In the assembly, he alleged that 20,000 ration card holders in his constituency had been issued APL cards when they were entitled to BPL and vice-versa. "When I visit villages in my constituency, I am gheroed by at least 25 women with wrong ration cards being issued," he added. Speaker Thimmappa, while directing food and civil supplies minister Dinesh Gundu Rao to look into the issue, told Chavan to remove the garland and maintain decorum of the House.

Rao said the department had weeded out five lakh bogus cards. "If one goes by Chavan's claim of discrepancies in 20,000 ration cards, there should be 40 lakh such documents in all 224 constituencies," he added.

Read this in Hindi: जूम कर प्रियंका गांधी की फोटो देख रहे थे बीजेपी MLA