BHOPAL: The entire Opposition walked out of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly during question hour on Wednesday taking the stand that the Government was not giving any reply to supplementary queries on a question relating to the budgetary provision for the State Tribal Welfare Department.

The Speaker, Ishwardas Rohani, earlier gave the ruling that after the Government's written reply there was no scope for a supplementary.

In response to Leader of the Opposition Jamuna Devi's query, State Minister for Tribal Welfare Kunwar Vijay Shah said in a written reply that Rs. 44434.13 lakhs had been allocated for the State Tribal welfare Department for 2006-07 whereas the allocation for this department for the just ended fiscal was Rs. 34117.73 lakhs. Since the budgetary allocation has gone up this year, the question whether those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes would be deprived of the benefits of schemes run by Tribal Welfare Department did not arise, it was emphasised in his official reply.

When Ms. Devi and some of her party MLAs, including Ajay Singh, Satyadev Katare, Arif Aqueel and Sajjan Verma kept pressing for a reply to counter-queries from their side, the Speaker gave the ruling that there was no scope for further queries.

At this stage, Ms. Devi led a walkout saying that they were walking out in protest as the Government was not giving a reply. Before the walkout, she was even heard saying that the Speaker was trying to protect the Minister. After the Opposition members had trooped out, PWD Minister, Kailash Vijayvargiya stood up and said that Ms. Devi be asked to apologise as she had passed a remark against the Speaker. This was strongly opposed by the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and former Minister Gauri Shankar Shejwar who said that nothing should be said about the Opposition leader when she was not present in the House. The Speaker intervened and sought Dr. Shejwar's cooperation saying that he had turned down the demand for an apology. He also explained the whole sequence, including Dr. Shejwar's point of order and his stand on it, when the Opposition members returned to their seats.

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