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Finally some hope for order in the Assembly

NEW DELHI: The presentation of the Delhi Budget-2008 by Finance Minister A.K. Walia on Monday will witness protests by the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs but this time round -- unlike during the Lieutenant-Governor’s address last week -- it would be within the democratic framework and in keeping with the decorum of the House.

Senior party leaders are understood to have sounded off the MLAs that they should conduct themselves within the boundaries determined by the legislature party that is due to meet on Monday morning for finalising the strategy of protest. Though the party would protest against price spiral, high rate of taxes and levying of higher charges for water and electricity, erring party MLAs this time stand to get the flak from the Delhi party leadership as well.

The need for a “disciplined” protest was felt by the Delhi BJP as during the address of Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna to the House on Monday, some party MLAs had entered the well of the House and even misbehaved with Speaker Prem Singh and Mr. Khanna while the address was on. And in this, the focus from the protest against acute water shortage was lost.

Though the party had later protested the “one-sided” ruling of reprimanding and imposing a fine on two of its MLAs, the senior leadership had heart-in-heart welcomed the decision as it had sought to discipline MLAs who had started behaving bigger than the party itself.

Within the Congress too, the senior leaders were rather peeved at the manner in which some of the MLAs had physically confronted the BJP MLAs during their protest in the well of the House. Though no action was taken against senior Congress MLA Bhisham Sharma who had taken on the BJP MLAs by removing their posters and getting physical with them, Leader of the House and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was apparently unhappy at the manner in which some Congress MLAs had conducted themselves.

Though she had later even thought of meeting with senior BJP leaders and the Speaker in order to evolve a mechanism so that such “reprehensible acts” are not repeated by either side, she gave up on the idea later as she was not sure how her proposal would be taken.

Incidentally, while most BJP leaders believe that the MLAs should not be allowed to cross the line, they insist that the Government has a critical role to play here. As Leader of Opposition Jagdish Mukhi put it: “It is essential that the Government also act on the requests of the Opposition MLAs who are answerable to their electorate. For it is usually in desperation for publicity and to address their electorate that the MLAs cross the line.”

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