Chief Minister should be blamed for 'manhandling' of Governor: Agnihotri
Shimla: Leader of Opposition in Himachal Pradesh Assembly Mukesh Agnihotri on Wednesday said Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur 'masterminded ' the incident of alleged manhandling of Governor Bandaru Dattatreya on the opening day of budget session on February 26 and he should rather apologise to the Opposition and public.
Sitting on a dharna, outside the Assembly for past three days following his suspension from the House along with four other MLAs, Agnihotri asked justifications of slapping sedition cases against MLAs and debarring them from entering the House for the whole session.
He said the Governor must take initiative to ask the government to end the impasse and revoke suspensions of the MLAs to enable the House to function normally.
Agnihotri said Chief Minister since cant face the opposition in view of several issues facing the governance, corruption during the Covid time, farmers' issues, rising prices, backdoor recruitments and around 1000 Covid deaths, he ( CM) devised a method to gag the Opposition.
The leader of Opposition said there was no intention of the Congress MLAs to stop the Governor or create any unpleasant scene for him when he had come to the assembly for his address but it's Chief Minister, his ministers and deputy speaker who came into the Opposition MLAs protest dharna and acted like ' bouncers'. This also had creation and provocations on the Opposite side.
Why did not the government, chief minister and Speaker plan an escape route for the Governor when the passage was blocked by the opposition MLAs who wanted to talk to the Governor and raise their grievances on the Governor s address.
Agnihotri said it was strange that the state assembly complex has been converted into a police camp, policemen and commandos are deployed at the gate to ensure that he doesn't enter the gate of the Assembly.
'Our families are put under surveillance, phones are tapped and visitors to his house are stopped and questioned. Am I a terrorist or a bad element? What is this treatment to the opposition leader? Has it happened before in the history of the state? Agnihotri asked.
He said the opposition has not broken any rule in raising the public issues. It is rather the government that has violated all democratic norms to deal with the opposition misusing ' power and authority' The leader of the opposition said it is the duty and responsibility of the Chief Minister and treasury benches to see that the assembly functions and the budget is passed with the participation of the opposition.
'The dissident in democracy is important and the opposition is just doing that' he said denying that there was any respect to the Governor thus he ( Governor) should intervene.
