Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker draws YSR Congress ire

His mic was disconnected 17 times on Tuesday, while he was speaking in the Assembly, said Mr Reddy.

He also demanded the Assembly to withdraw the action taken against three YSRC members. “We will not hesitate to move a no-confidence motion against the Speaker, if the proceedings are conducted in a one-sided way, gagging the voice of the Opposition. Maybe for the first time in history of a Parliamentary democracy, the Leader of Opposition was denied a mic to protest and to mention the reasons for his party walking out,” said Mr Reddy.

He added, “If the Chair does not consider the requests of the Opposition, which is the voice of the people, we will not hesitate to move a no-trust motion, but we expect that the situation will not come down to that extent and hope the proceedings will run as per the rules. As we have a 40 per cent vote share, time should be allotted in the same ratio, if not more, as we are the only Opposition party in the House.”

He further alleged that the House was being run like a party affair and as the Leader of Opposition, when he was speaking on the Budget allocations, the frequency of interruptions was very high. “The ruling party has been giving wrong data on this count, but our party leaders have tracked the data of the Assembly proceedings minute-by-minute,” he said.

The rulebook clearly says that six days shall be allocated for debate on Budget and eight days for voting-on-demands for grants, but the TD has reduced the Budget discussion drastically.

He also alleged, “The telecast rights are also given to the TD-friendly media, which has been projecting only the viewpoint of the ruling party and the Treasury benches are playing to the gallery and the channel is blowing it up.”

BJP MLA Vishnu Kumar Raju had said earlier, “For the smooth functioning of the Assembly, enough time should be given to the Opposition too.”