Bengaluru, March 17 Karnataka Legislative Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti briefly adjourned the House on Tuesday, expressing displeasure over the absence of ministers and ruling party members after lunch.
This development came a day after Assembly Speaker U T Khader adjourned the House and walked out in protest, over the lack of written replies from government departments to questions raised by MLAs.
The "unprecedented" move by the Speaker had caused embarrassment to the Congress government, forcing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to issue directives to ministers and bureaucrats, including suspending errant officials.
When the council resumed after lunch, Leader of the Opposition Chalavadi Narayanaswamy pointed to the empty treasury benches and suggested that ruling party members seemed to have "boycotted" the proceedings.
Only Minister of School Education and Literacy Madhu Bangarappa and Chief Whip Saleem Ahmed were present.
The Chairman asked, "The ministers are not here; what should I do?"
Raising objection to the empty treasury benches, Opposition Chief Whip N Ravikumar said, "If we have to speak on any issues, who should we address? Who is present among the ministers? Where is the government?"
Following this, Horatti adjourned the House for 10 minutes.
When the House resumed, a couple of ministers – Ramalinga Reddy and Santosh Lad – arrived, but the treasury benches remained largely empty as most of the ruling Congress MLCs were absent.
The Chairman asked Chief Whip Saleem Ahmed, "If there are no members and ministers on the treasury bench side, what is the situation? How should the House be run? If you don't want, I will adjourn the House for tomorrow. What other work is there during the session? If there are no members and the seats are empty, how can the House run?"
When Horatti asked Chief Whip Ahmed about the MLCs, Ahmed replied, "They will be coming."
Pointing out that MLCs were not present despite the House resuming late post lunch, the Chairman said, "What should we do? Shall I adjourn the House for tomorrow? What do you mean that they will be coming? I don't like it."
Ravikumar attacked the ruling Congress, asking, "To whom should we raise these issues?"
When the Chairman expressed his willingness to adjourn the House till Wednesday morning, Ravikumar said the opposition BJP was ready to participate in the proceedings, provided the treasury benches show equal cooperation.
Defending the ruling party members, Congress MLC Ramesh Babu said there was some delay in the return of his party colleagues, who had gone for lunch.
As a couple of ministers and ruling party MLCs started trickling in, the Chairman called BJP MLC A H Vishwanth to speak on the Budget.