FW Bureau

Chandigarh, Sept 7

Thirty opposition MLAs were today suspended from the Haryana Assembly for creating chaos in the House over the issue of an alleged rape of a girl in Gurgaon in a car, purportedly owned by state Home Minister, Gopal Kanda. Speaker H S Chatha suspended 29 INLD MLAs and one SAD legislator, including leader of the Opposition Om Prakash Chautala, after they created ruckus in the House demanding Home Minister Gopal Kanda’s resignation. The House witnessed uproarious scenes as soon as the zero hour commenced with Chautala alleging that Kanda had misled the government on the rape issue. Waving some papers, he said the bank account statement showed that the car, allegedly used to kidnap the girl from Delhi and later raped in Gurgaon recently, was still owned by a company of Kanda. However, the Speaker did not allow him to speak saying the House had referred the matter to the Privileges Committee and he could place the papers before it. “I gave you time. You deliberately want to make noise in the house,” the Speaker said. Angered over Chata’s statement, the INLD members rushed to the well raising slogans following which the House was adjourned for 30 minutes. When the house re-assembled, the pandemonium continued with the INLD leader reiterating his demand to sack Kanda. He alleged that the government was suppressing the Opposition by not allowing it to raise any issue. However, in the absence of INLD legislators Kanda denied that he owned the car in which the gang rape took place in Gurgaon. “I don’t have any relation with the owner of this car, the opposition is just wasting the time of the house on this issue”, added Kanda on the floor of the House. Coming for Kanda’s rescue, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, “By raising this issue the Opposition wants to grab the media headlines.” He said that Opposition should have maintained attitude of cooperation but they had made up their mind to not to let the house function. Chatha adjourned the House again for another 30 minutes after his repeated appeals failed to calm the Opposition. “I appeal to the respected Opposition legislators that the document (being shown by them) is no proof,” the Speaker said even as the Opposition continued with their unruly behaviour disrupting normal functioning of the House. Heated exchanges between the Opposition and the ruling Congress members continued even after the House re-assembled for the third time, following which the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Surjewala brought in a motion proposing suspension of 30 legislators for the remaining session of the Assembly, which was adjourn sine die after the day’s business. Two INLD members — Ajay Chautala and Saroj Mor – were not suspended as they were not present in the House when the motion for suspending the opposition MLAs was brought in. Meanwhile, the Indian National Lokdal chief Om Parkash Chautala assured to have enough evidence to prove that the car used for the rape belongs to Kanda. He said, “We have the bank documents, which prove that Gopal Kanda had taken a loan of Rs One Crore from the ICICI bank for purchase of this car.”