The Hindu : New Delhi News : Dissidents leave Govt. embarrassed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Dissidents leave Govt. embarrassed

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. Once again the dissidents in the Congress party succeeded in showing the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, and her close aides in poor light in the Delhi Assembly today, proving a point that they do matter in the scheme of things.

The question hour was cut short by almost 40 minutes and the House had to be adjourned for 30 minutes following the failure of the Congress party to ensure a proper quorum at the start of day's proceedings. The Congress Chief Whip, Ramakant Goswami, and the Chief Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Minister, Nasib Singh, once again came in for flak for poor floor management.

As soon as the members started assembling for the day and the quorum bell started ringing, the Congress members struggled to ensure the presence of 23 members in the House to start the proceedings. The quorum bell continued to ring as the Chip Whip as well as Kanwar Karan Singh (Cong) were seen scouting around the Assembly complex looking for party legislators. Interestingly, even the OSD to the Chief Minister, Pawan Khera, was seen requesting members not to go outside the House. However, all their efforts failed to ensure the required majority and the Secretary, Vidhan Sabha, Siddharath Rao announced that under instructions from the Speaker, Chaudhary Prem Singh, he was adjourning the House for 30 minutes.

This led to red faces in the treasury benches and the Chief Whip even went to the MLAs Lounge hoping to rope in a few BJP legislators who had not been expelled from the House. The Chief Minister was clearly not happy with the turn of events and was visibly upset over the situation that caused severe embarrassment to the ruling party as well as the Leader of the House. The fact that Ms. Dikshit, being the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and her close aide and Chief Whip failed to ensure the presence of the MLAs in the House indicated the level of understanding within the ruling party putting a question mark over the authority of the CLP leader. Further, it is learnt that during the recess, various leaders were despatched from the House to call up MLAs on their mobile phones and ask them to rush to the House during the break.

The rivals of the Chief Minister have used the occasion to prove a point that the Chief Minister had little control over her flock and there was strong resentment against her style of functioning among the party legislators. It is learnt that the rival leaders had decided yesterday itself that they would stay away from the House during the initial few minutes to show poor coordination within the ruling Congress. .

Later, after a lot of scrambling and pleading with the MLAs, the party was able to ensure the presence of around 26 legislators in the House. However, during the debate on water and power and the public distribution system, only 14 to 16 members were present inside the House but the proceedings went on without this serious anomaly being pointed out for reasons best known to those who were running the House.

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