All over a diary: Karnataka House stalled again

Bengaluru: Ruckus over the Govindaraju diary with its alleged entries of bribes taken and given by the ruling Congress washed out business in the Assembly for the second day on Friday, with the opposition unwilling to give up its protest against Speaker K.B. Koliwad's U-turn on allowing a debate.

The day began with BJP leaders continuing their protest in the well of the House. Seeing their adamancy,  Mr Koliwad tried to convince them to resume their seats, saying he had no choice but to withdraw his ruling on allowing a debate on the issue in response to a point of order raised by Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister , T B Jayachandra. But when they refused to budge, he adjourned the House  to hold a Business Advisory Committee meeting, where going by leader of the opposition, Jagadish Shettar, the government tried to persuade the opposition to give up its protest and turn its attention to the drought and other issues.   

It , however , clearly failed in its attempt as when the House resumed, the BJP MLAs remained defiantly in the well of the House and entered into a heated argument with their Congress counterparts. With CM Siddaramaiah and Mr Shettar too entering into a verbal duel, the  chaos only worsened, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House to Monday.

Speaking to reporters, Mr  Shettar  accused the government of bringing pressure on the Speaker not to allow  a debate on the diary. "The government is afraid  of the names mentioned in the diary  coming out and also  the letter written by Mr Govindaraju to IT officials going public. It doesn't want details of the  FIR to come out either," he charged, adding, "At the BAC meeting it wanted us to drop the issue and move on to a debate on the drought and budget. We, however, offered to speak on the diary  without mentioning any names and said it was free to  give its reply. But it is running scared. We will continue our fight on Monday.''