12 BJP MLAS SUSPENDED FOR ABUSING MAHA SPEAKER, BJP CALLS IT CONSPIRACY

Twelve BJP MLAs on Monday were suspended for the period of one year from the Maharashtra Assembly for allegedly creating ruckus in ongoing monsoon session of the House and “misbehaving” with Speaker in-chair Bhaskar Jadhav. The motion to suspend the MLAs was moved by state Parliamentary Affairs Minister Anil Parab and passed by a voice vote.

The 12 suspended members are Sanjay Kute, Ashish Shelar, Abhimanyu Pawar, Girish Mahajan, Atul Bhatkhalkar, Parag Alavani, Harish Pimpale, Yogesh Sagar, Jay Kumar Rawat, Narayan kuche, Ram Satpute and Bunty Bhangdia. To protest against the decision, BJP members led by Devendra Fadnavis said that the Opposition would boycott the House proceedings.

“This is a false allegation and an attempt to reduce the numbers of Opposition benches, because we exposed the government’s falsehood on the OBC quota in local bodies,” Fadnavis said, adding that the BJP members had not abused the presiding officer.

“It was Shiv Sena MLAs who used abusive words. I brought our MLAs out of the Speaker’s chamber,” the Leader of Opposition in the House said. Ashish Shelar apologised and the matter ended, the former chief minister said, claiming that what Jadhav said was a “one-sided” account.

Speaking on the same, suspended BJP MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar said, “I wasn’t even there, yet I have been named because I criticise the government all the time. This is a black day, a shameful day in democracy today. This is an effort to muzzle our voice. They are scared.”

Calling it a “conspiracy” by the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government, another BJP MLA Ram Kadam said, “They were scared that they would have been embarrassed in front of the whole country if their own MLAs would have done cross-voting during the Speaker’s election. That is why this is a conspiracy to reduce our numbers in the Assembly.”

Earlier, NCP leader and minister Nawab Malik accused the BJP members of misbehaving with Bhaskar Jadhav and the state Assembly was adjourned four times over the issue.