19 Congress-NCP MLAs suspended till Dec 31 for creating ruckus, burning budget copies

The Maharashtra State Assembly on Wednesday suspended 19 opposition MLAs from Congress and NCP till December 31 for creating ruckus while Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar was presenting the State Budget on March 18.

The MLAs will no longer be allowed to enter the premises of both Mumbai and Nagpur assembly till the end of this year.

The proposal to suspend the MLAs was moved by parliamentary affairs minister Girish Bapat in the Lok Sabha. Bapat said the opposition leaders had conducted themselves in a “disgraceful and unconstitutional manner”.

Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagde issued suspension orders today.

He cited displaying banners, playing cymbals, shouting slogans and disregarding the speaker’s directions as the reason for suspension.

The 19 suspended MLAs are:

Congress (9): Amar Kale, Vijay Waddetiwar, Harshwardhan Sakpal, Abdul Sattar, DP Sawant, Sangram Thopte, Amit Zanak, Kunal Patil and Jaikumar Gore.

NCP (10): Bhaskar Jadhav, Jitendra Awhad, Madhusudan Kendre, Sangram Jagtap, Avdhut Tatkare, Deepak Chavan, Datta Bharne, Narhari Jirval, Vaibhav Pichad and Rahul Jagtap.

Expressing disappointment over the announcement made by Mungantiwar in the state budget for 2017-18, the opposition MLAs burnt copies of the same outside the assembly on March 18.

Following the suspension, leader of opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said the government can suspend all the opposition MLAs but they will continue to raise farmers’ issues.

Despite demands from the Shiv Sena and other opposition parties, Mungantiwar did not make any announcement on the loan waiver for farmers in the budget. The government, however, allocated Rs 8,233 crore for various irrigation projects for the farmers.

“Maharashtra’s growth rate for 2016-17 was 9.4 percent and we aim to take this at least in double digit in the coming year (2017-18). For farmers, Rs. 8,233 crores has been allocated for water resources and Rs. 2,812 crore has been allocated for Prime Minister’s irrigation scheme proposed for year 2017-18,” Mungantiwar said while reading out the budget.