The Hindu : Din over move to rename complex

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Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

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Din over move to rename complex

By Our Staff Correspondent

JAIPUR, JAN. 21. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government's latest move to rename a premier educational complex rocked the Assembly today with the Opposition Congress and the ruling party members challenging each other in the well of the House amid a noisy disorder.

The State Cabinet had recently decided to rename the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Sankul, situated at Jawaharlal Nehru Marg here -- constructed by the previous Congress-led Government for housing all offices of the Education Department under one roof -- after the former President and noted educationist, S. Radhakrishnan.

The issue came up during the zero hour when the Congress member, Sanyam Lodha, flanked by a couple of other from his party, asked the Speaker, Sumitra Singh, about the fate of his notice for adjournment motion on the Government's decision. Ms. Singh said she had sought information on it from the Government and would give her ruling after receiving it. When there were murmurs of displeasure from the treasury benches on the issue, the Leader of Opposition, B.D. Kalla, stood up and accused the BJP of indulging in a meaningless exercise of changing the building's name. "This move will bring disgrace on the Government itself. There is no justification for denigrating Rajiv Gandhi in this manner, as he had sacrificed his life for the nation,'' he said.

With the BJP members protesting against Mr. Kalla's comments, the House was plunged into pandemonium and both the sides raised slogans and counter-slogans against each other. The Congress members trooped into the well of the House and took exception to the language used by the BJP MLAs against the late Prime Minister. The Speaker's repeated attempts to pacify both the sides and restore order in the House failed and the BJP members gathered in front of the treasury benches while trying to go to the well. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ghanshyam Tiwari, and other senior members of the ruling party made an attempt to prevent them from entering into a direct confrontation with the Opposition MLAs. As tempers ran high in both the camps, the Public Works Department Minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, accused the Congress of insulting the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, saying that the issue of renaming a building could not be used to make snide remarks against the ruling party's national leaders.

Ms. Singh succeeded in controlling the uproar after about half- an- hour and directed that the objectionable references made to both Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Vajpayee be expunged from the Assembly proceedings. She rebuked both the sides for having lost their temper and asked them not to provoke each other and maintain decorum of the House in future.

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