The legislators of Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday exchanged blows inside Gujarat legislative assembly.
The incident occurred after Congress MLAs started creating ruckus and rushed to the well as their MLA from Jamnagar Vikram Maadam was not allowed to raise a point of order, reported The Times of India.
Since Wednesday morning, Maadam had been trying to raise a point of order but was not allowed to ask any question; instead another Congress MLA from Danilimda Shailesh Parmar was instructed to raise the point of order, said the report.
Congress MLA from Savarkundla, Pratap Dudhat, has been suspended for the entire term by Gujarat assembly Speaker Rajendra Trivedi after he attacked a BJP MLA with a microphone in the house.
“This agitated Maadam and he started raising objections, following which Parmar preferred to sit down giving way to his colleague to raise the question. However, as the Speaker did not allow Maadam to ask the question, two other Congress MLAs — Virji Thummar and Amrish Der — rushed to the well and started arguing. Der even asked the Speaker why he was not allowing Maadam to speak and if he had any problem,” report stated.
The Speaker then objected to his tone, following which Maadam and Der rushed to the well of the house in protest, the report said.
Trivedi subsequently suspended both the Congress MLAs for the day and they were escorted out of the assembly by the marshals, said the report.
This enraged Congress MLA Pratap Dudhat, who rushed towards the BJP MLAs and before anyone could take stock of the situation, Dudhat pulled out a microphone from Bhuj BJP MLA Nima Acharya’s table and started beating Nikol’s BJP MLA Jagdish Panchal, the report said.
Assembly sergeants came immediately and rescued Panchal from Dudhat — who was taken out of the assembly, the report said.
“However, Dudhat came from another door which opened at the side of the BJP MLAs. This time, he started beating Panchal from behind, which irked the BJP MLAs, who by then had started thrashing and attacking Dudhat. Dudhat was pushed towards the floor of the house and many BJP MLAs were seen kicking him brutally,” the report mentioned.
This then led to two other MLAs — Harsh Sanghvi from the BJP and Balwantsinh from Congress — indulging in an aggressive verbal spat, following which sergeants pulled them aside, the report stated.