Headlines
Five Left legislators suspended in Kerala
The Kerala assembly Monday passed a resolution moved by Chief Minister
Oommen Chandy suspending five Left legislators for the rest of the
session for unruly conduct on Friday.
The five are E.P. Jayarajan, K.T. Jaleel, K. Ajith, V. Sivan Kutty and K. Kunhammad.
The
assembly witnessed unruly scenes on Friday as Left members broke the
speaker's chair and the electronic equipment on his desk to register
their protest against Finance Minister K.M. Mani, who they did not want
to present the budget, calling him corrupt.
On Monday, when the session started, everything appeared calm.
After
the hour-long question hour ended, speaker N. Sakthan said Friday's
events in and outside the assembly made everyone hand their heads in
shame. He then invited various party leaders for a discussion.
After two hours, the house reconvened. Chandy announced that it had been decided to suspend the five Left legislators.
"In a democracy everyone has a right to protest but it has to be done within limits of civility and decency," he said.
A
furious V.S. Achuthanandan, the opposition leader and a former chief
minister, condemned the arbitrary attitude of the speaker and the
government in going ahead with the decision.
"We disagree with
this one-sided action. Why is that you did not take any action against
your legislators who outraged the modesty of five lady legislators that
day?
"We had warned that the situation will be tough if you allow
Mani to present the budget... The two people who are responsible for
this are Mani
and Chandy," he said.
After that, the entire
opposition trooped into the well of the house. Despite requests from the
speaker and Chandy, the five suspended legislators refused to leave the
house.
Amid the din, Chandy moved a resolution to suspend the sitting for the
entire week.
He
also asked the speaker to expunge the unparliamentarily words of
Achuthanandan. The media was asked not to report the expunged part of
his speech.
Later, Achuthanandan said the Left would continue its protests till Mani
resigned.