The Odisha Congress on Thursday hit out at Speaker Surama Padhy accusing her of displaying a partisan attitude towards the party legislators.
Talking to reporters at the party headquarters on Thursday, several legislators, led by Congress leader Ram Chandra Kadam, alleged that the issues being raised by the party were being sidelined.
“The House is being run according to BJP’s diktat,” Kadam alleged. Kadam’s remarks come in the wake of party legislator Tara Prasad Bahinipati’s suspension from the state Assembly following a scuffle with a BJP leader in the House.
Kadam, who addressed the media alongside Bahinipati, said the party was being punished for raising burning issues like rising atrocities against women.
“Is it a crime to take up cases of atrocities on women? Is it wrong to highlight the fact that our sisters and mothers are not safe under the present government? More than 44,000 women are missing in the state. Their whereabouts remain unknown.”
The Congress leader said: “We wanted a House committee to probe rising atrocities against women and girls in the state. Let a BJP MLA be the chairman of the committee. We don’t have any objection... The Speaker should take a call on the issue.”
Kadam alleged: “During the BJD government, journalists were not allowed insidethe state secretariat... The same principle is adopted by this government. Journalists are not being allowed to take photographs. When our MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati raised the issue, he was heckled and later was banned from entering the House for seven days.”
Bahinipati said: “Some criminals of the BJP attacked me inside the Assembly on the day I was suspended. BJP MLA Jaynarayan Mishra grabbed my collar. When I objected to it, they pushed me.”
The legislator said his party would continue to raise the issue of deteriorating condition of women in the state. “Since 2000, I have seen many Speakers but no one displayed such a partisan attitude. We condemn it,” he added.
The Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee has decided to organise a protest rally on March 27 in front of the Odisha Assembly.
