Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Oct 4: People’s Democratic Party (PDP) legislators walked out of the Legislative Council today alleging that Minister for Medical Education, Rajinder Singh Chib didn’t show any respect to the Chairman while answering a question in the House.
As Chib stood up to reply to the question posed by Dr. Bashir Ahmad Veeri about the vacancies in the Health Department, Legislative Council Chairman, Amrit Malhotra said that since the legislator has got the details he would like to pose a supplementary to the Minister. On this, the Minister said he would like to read out the answer since the information is the property of the house.
The Chairman gave his consent and said that Chib can read out the answer. While he was giving the answer, Murtaza Ahmad Khan of PDP stood up and interrupted the Minister. He alleged that Chib wants to waste the time of the house by coming out with a lengthy answer. He accused Chib of disrespecting the chair saying that the minister has bye-passed the direction of the Chairman.
“It seems the Minister wants to impress the house with good English. He can do so at some other forum and for this he should not keep the house at ransom. He is doing this deliberately as the Government does not want that important questions are answered on the floor of the House,” said Murtaza.
The accusations and allegations did not go well with Chib and he said that Murtaza has used un-parliamentary language against him. On this Murtaza said that he has not indulged in such act, adding that the Minister should have respected the chair. He said instead of reading out the answer the Minister should have directly replied to the supplementary questions raised by the legislator.
As the exchange of words was on between Murtaza and Chib, Devinder Singh Rana stood up and said that Murtaza always uses derogatory remarks while making his point on the floor of the house. This was not liked by Murtaza who said that Rana is acting like a PRO of the Minister.
“I am not a PRO of the Minister but I am a member of the house. I have every right to raise my point and you cannot stop me in doing so. You should behave properly and respect the Minister since he is the leader of the House. If the legislator has no problem in listening to the answer why should you stand up and poke your nose on this issue,” said Rana while referring to Murtaza.
Murtaza was joined by his fellow party men Mohammad Ashraf Mir, Nizam-ud-Din Khatana, Syed Asgar Ali and National Panthers Party legislator Syed Rafiq Shah. These legislators also accused the Government of keeping the more important questions at the end of the list and wanted the Chairman to intervene in this regard.
As the Chairman asked them to keep cool and allow the proceedings to continue the legislators walked out of the House. They returned after 20 minutes and took part in the subsequent proceedings of the House.
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