Kerala Assembly session called off seven days ahead of schedule

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The budget session of the assembly was cut short seven days ahead of schedule, following major protests by the Opposition, including satyagraha by five UDF MLAs inside the House. With Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan moving a motion to guillotine the session, Speaker A N Shamseer quickly ran through the proceedings and wound up the eighth session of the 15th assembly on Tuesday.

Like previous days, the assembly witnessed dramatic scenes on Tuesday too. The first surprise came from the Opposition at the beginning of the session. Opposition leader V D Satheesan announced an indefinite satyagraha of five MLAs — Uma Thomas, Anwar Sadath, T J Vinod, Kurakkoli Moitheen and AKM Ashraf — in the well of the House, protesting against lack of assurance from the chief minister on the permission of Rule 50 notice and withdrawing the non-bailable case charged against seven MLAs.

The ruling front first responded to the move with a nonchalant attitude and continued with the question hour. The Opposition MLAs sat in the well of the House and shouted slogans against the speaker and the government. Though the speaker tried to remind them about his ruling on Monday related to the members’ behaviour and protests, the agitation continued unabated.

Minister M B Rajesh also intervened and requested the speaker to take stern action, quoting rules of procedure. Each MLA and minister who spoke did not forget to criticise the protests.

With the UDF’s surprise strategy, the government decided to wind up the session six minutes before the end of the question hour with the speaker announcing the dismissal of question hour and the chief minister moving a motion to guillotine the remaining days of sitting.

Five bills, including few very important ones, were passed without any discussion. The bills are: The Kerala Public Health Bill — which brings all existing public health legislation under it, Kerala Finance Bill — under which `2 fuel cess will be implemented from April, Kerala Private Forests (Vesting and Assignments) Amendment Bill 2023, Kerala Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill 2023, and Kerala Municipality (Amendment) Bill 2023. A total of eight bills were passed in the session.

In its 21 days of sitting, the assembly witnessed many unruly scenes from both Opposition and ruling benches. The Opposition stalled the proceedings for five consecutive days till Tuesday. The war of words between the Opposition and the ruling front took a U-turn with the Opposition MLAs staging a protest in front of the speaker’s office which turned violent. The scuffle between the Opposition MLAs and the watch and ward got ugly with both parties filing petitions against each other.

The session also saw unprecedented scenes when the Opposition crossed the line between the chair and members to question the speaker’s impartiality in and out of the assembly. All hell broke loose after the spar between the CM and Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan during a discussion on Rule 50 notice over Life Mission. The Opposition accused the speaker of denying permission to most of the notices for adjournment motions.

The relations between the speaker and the Opposition turned worse when the former called many Opposition MLAs who were protesting in front of the chair by their name and warned them that they are being watched by people.

He then warned Shafi Parambil that he would lose the next election, which he later withdrew. On March 15, the Opposition also staged a mock assembly within the well of the House.CPM state secretary M V Govindan, who was absent from the House for a long due to his Janakeeya Prathirodha Yatra, attended the session for a short while on Tuesday.