New Delhi: Four Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MPs walked out of the Lok Sabha on Monday after submitting their resignations in protest of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's delay in forming a separate Telangana state.
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said he would look into the matter.
Meanwhile, in Hyderabad, the issue of auctioning government lands in and around the city rocked the Andhra Pradesh Assembly on Monday with the speaker suspending all legislators of the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for one day for stalling the proceedings.
The opposition was demanding that the government immediately halt the sale and auction of lands to big companies and the rich as the poor would be left with no land to build houses.
A day after holding a maha dharna (mega sit-in) along with other opposition parties, the TDP raised the matter as soon as the house met for the day.
When Speaker KR Suresh Reddy rejected the adjournment motion, the TDP members were on their feet. Shouting slogans against the government, they marched towards the speaker's podium. Amid the din, the speaker adjourned the house for 15 minutes.
When the house re-assembled, TDP members continued to demand immediate debate on the issue. Though the speaker agreed to fix time for debate after discussions with the government, the TDP stuck to its guns. Deputy leader of the party T Devender Goud demanded that the government stop the auction of lands pending a debate in the house.
As repeated requests by the chair to allow the house to take up question hour fell on deaf ears, Minister for Legislative Affairs K Rosaiah moved a resolution for suspending all 26 TDP members present in the house for the day. The resolution was passed with a voice vote. TDP has 45 members in the 294-member assembly.
The TDP legislators later staged a sit-in in the lobbies of the Assembly and raised slogans against the Congress government. They alleged that the government had sold 30,000 acres of prime land in and around Hyderabad during the last four years.
TDP President and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had on Sunday warned that his party would take back all the land sold to big industries and rich if it comes to power in the next year's elections and distribute the same among poor.
The government last month informed the state legislature that it earned over Rs 35 billion by auctioning lands in Hyderabad and surrounding areas during the last four years. It plans to use part of the revenue for major infrastructure projects like the outer ring road and an elevated expressway.
Comments
0 comment