Bangalore: Legislative Assembly Speaker Krishna on Monday admonished Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who was replying to allegations that he had taken Rs. 150 crore as bribe from mine owners in Bellary district. The Speaker also went on to advise the Opposition how to raise the issue and under what rule.

It was not, however, the first time that a Speaker came in the way of a Chief Minister who rose to make a speech in the Assembly. In 1990, the House was debating the telephone tapping issue in which the late Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde was in the centre of the controversy, the late Veerendra Patil was the Chief Minister and present Maharashtra Governor S.M. Krishna was the Speaker. At one point, Patil rose and wanted to say something on the issue, but Mr. Krishna told him to sit and instead allowed Hegde to have his say.

On Monday, Mr. Kumaraswamy, who declared that he would not run away from the House and would face the challenge and even reply to the allegations, was shocked by the Speaker's diktat and resumed his seat.

The House assembled 85 minutes late and Leader of the Opposition N. Dharam Singh, the senior Congress member M. Mallikarjun Kharge and Kannada Chaluvali member Vatal Nagaraj wanted to know the reason for the delay.

The Speaker said that a former MLA had died and he had been discussing the obituary references and the notice for an adjournment motion sent by Mr. Singh.

Dharna suspended

The Congress members, who suspended their dharna demanding a CBI investigation into the Banagalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project, wanted to know the fate of their adjournment motion on the alleged bribery case.

The Speaker announced that the motion had been disallowed, but the Opposition persisted that it should be allowed to discuss the issue.

Transport Minister N. Cheluvaraya Swamy, Home Minister M.P. Prakash and Water Resources Minister K.S. Eshwarappa objected to it.

Meanwhile, there were arguments going on between Mr. Cheluvaraya Swamy and A. Krishnappa (Congress) on the one hand and another between Housing Minister D.T. Jayakumar and the former Speaker Ramesh Kumar (Congress).

This led Mr. Kharge to advise the Janata Dal (Secular) against attempting to blackmail Congress members and challenged the party to file criminal cases, instead, if it had the courage.

Both Mr. Krishnappa and Mr. Ramesh Kumar urged the Speaker to expunge the objectionable words used against them by Mr. Cheluvaraya Swamy and Mr. Jayakumar.

The Speaker agreed to expunge them.

Even as the Congress members were insisting on their motion being taken up, the Chief Minister held up a copy of the book by the former police chief C. Dinakar challenged the Congress members to listen the excerpts from the book. But the Speaker stopped him.

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