State Assembly. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 8: Congress legislators continued their round-the-clock dharna inside the Assembly demanding reply from chief minister Naveen Patnaik on the Rayagada teacher burning issue.

“We are fighting for our rights. The chief minister heads the home department and he is supposed to reply to the adjournment motion on the teacher’s murder,” said Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh, who is leading the dharna inside the House since yesterday afternoon.

“We will continue our dharna till we get a reply from the chief minister”, he said adding that the Congress legislators spent last night and the entire day today on the Assembly floor.

This was the first time in the history of the state assembly, the Leader of Opposition, who is accorded status next to the chief minister, sat on dharna in the well of the House.

“Nobody from the ruling party came to request me to resolve the imbroglio,” said Singh.

Earlier, the Congress MLAs had staged a round-the-clock dharna inside the House from December 4 to 19 in 2009 demanding a white paper on the mining scam, constitution of a House Committee and a CBI probe. Stating that the party MLAs are on a rely dharna, Congress chief whip Prasad Harichandan said around 11 to 12 Congress legislators slept on the Assembly floor last night along with the leader of the Opposition. Today around 14 of its 27 legislators were present in the House staging dharna.

“We slept on the floor spreading a bed sheet in the winter night,” said a Congress MLA.

Harichandan said last night and today they had procured food from the Assembly canteen.

The House is generally locked up from Saturday evening to Monday morning. But since the Congress members stayed inside the House, 26 watch and ward employees of the Assembly were on duty in the inner ring of the House round the clock despite today being a holiday.

“For us, today is a normal sitting day,” said a watch and ward staff on condition of anonymity.

On the outer ring, 10 platoons of police forces guarded the Assembly premises. “We are guarding the vantage points and entrances of the Assembly today to provide security to the legislators,” said a police officer on duty.

With the Congress legislators digging in their heels, it is clear that the party is in no mood to make things easy for the ruling party and Naveen. The issue being sensitive, the Congress is aware of the importance of raising it before the elections since attacks against women is certain to be a dominant issue in 2014 elections.

The ruling party, on the other hand, will like to convince the people that the Congress is playing to the gallery only with an eye on votes.