The Hindu : New Delhi News : Speaker hits out at BJP leaders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 12, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Speaker hits out at BJP leaders

Staff Reporter

Denies that they had submitted any memo regarding nominations to DJB

NEW DELHI: Terming the aspersions cast on the functioning of the Speaker as "unfortunate and regrettable", Delhi Assembly Speaker Chaudhay Prem Singh on Tuesday termed as false the claim by the Leader of the Opposition, Jagdish Mukhi, and the Bharatiya Janata Party chief whip, Sahib Singh Chauhan, that they had met the Speaker on Monday and submitted a memorandum to him.

In a statement, Mr. Prem Singh said there was no truth in Mr. Mukhi's claim that he had met the Speaker and submitted a memorandum with regard to the nominations to the Delhi Jal Board and the Delimitation Commission constituted for demarcating the MCD wards afresh.

Regretting that an attempt had been made to drag the office of Speaker into controversy, Mr. Prem Singh said there was no hard and fixed rule that a member of a particular opposition party had to be nominated for such posts. He said the entire matter was at the discretion of the Speaker and he had exercised his power.

Mr. Prem Singh said he had been asked to nominate three members for the Delimitation Commission. Exercising his powers, he had nominated three MLAs for the Commission of which two are from the minority community and one from the Other Backward Classes. "By speaking out against such nominations, the BJP leaders had made known their mind-set and the kind of respect they held for such communities."

The Speaker said it was also wrong to state that Badarpur MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri was not from a recognised party. The Nationalist Congress Party is a recognised national party and this fact had been kept in mind while nominating Mr. Bidhuri to the Commission as well as the Jal Board.

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