PrashantNews
A day after facing “baniya” remark, Uttarakhand Cabinet Minister Prem Chand Agarwal on Friday lost his cool after being denounced as anti-hill by a Congress member that forced Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan to express her strong displeasure.
Khanduri sought to cool tempers on the apparent hill-plain divide in the House advising the members not to behave like people standing in the street and said “we all are from Uttarakhand.”
The tense situation arose in the House during the budget session of the state assembly in Dehradun when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Agarwal was responding to an issue raised by Congress member Manoj Tiwari during the Zero Hour regarding the problems being faced by the people due to alleged corruption in the district level development authorities constituted in the state.
As Agarwal rose to speak, Congress member Madan Singh Bisht made some comment against Agarwal following which the cabinet minister got agitated and said “did we make sacrifices to demand Uttarakhand for this day?” He expressed his strong displeasure after being allegedly labeled as anti-pahadi (anti-hill) by Bisht. Agarwal further alleged that the opposition members want to take the state toward “disintegration”. Accusing the opposition of repeatedly making such comments, the minister asked the Leader of Opposition Yashpal Arya to explain his stand.
As Agrawal got angry, other Congress members also stood up and said the minister was unnecessarily blowing the issue out of proportion. There was uproar in the House for some time over this issue. As Congress members got united, Agarwal failed to find support from the treasury benches.
Expressing strong displeasure over the issue, the Speaker intervened and said, ‘We are behaving in such a way as if we are standing in a street”. She described the House as a temple and advised the members not to behave in this manner. She said that such comments are very unfortunate.
The Speaker later expunged all the derogatory remarks from the proceedings.