Both houses of UP legislature rocked over Manipur violence

Lucknow, Aug 7 (PTI) Opposition parties in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly raised the Manipur issue on the opening day of the Monsoon session on Monday, demanding that the House pass a resolution condemning the ethnic strife in the northeastern state.

Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Congress also demanded a statement from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was present in the House, on the ongoing violence in the northeastern state and trooped into the well over the matter.

Speaking in the Assembly during the Zero Hour, Leader of Opposition in the assembly Akhilesh Yadav said the Manipur issue is “serious”, adding, “Can’t we pass a resolution to condemn it?”.

Speaker Satish Mahana turned down the plea asking members to stick to the state’s issue.
Yadav said, “Uttar Pradesh is the largest state in the country, and even the prime minister represents the state from his constituency here. So at least on Manipur violence, we hope that you (Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) will speak and condemn it.”

Modi is second consecutive term Lok Sabha MP from Varanasi.

Akhilesh Yadav also said, “The Leader of the House (Yogi Adityanath) is a star campaigner of the saffron party. In which state do you not go to ask for votes? At least there is a chance that today you can become the voice of the country by saying something. And if you need our support for this, we are ready. Today, you can prove that you too have a voice.”

Refusing the opposition’s demand, the Speaker said tradition and convention do not allow the House to take up the matter.

responding to Yadav, Speaker Mahana said, “Everybody has condemned it here, but the Vidhan Sabha cannot speak about other states.”

The Speaker said, “Leader of Opposition, you are very competent, and you should not give it a political shape. Whatever happened was extremely wrong. The discussion will take place where the incident took place. If anything is happening in Bengal and Kerala, it cannot be stated as wrong or right here.”
The Speaker also turned down the demand by Congress leader Aradhana Mishra who demanded that the matter be taken up in the House after suspending listed business.

Before the SP chief spoke, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna said, “Everybody knows about the incident, which happened in Manipur. The respective state government or the Centre may discuss it, do anything, but this subject does not pertain to here. Therefore, there should be no discussion on it.”

Taking on the Opposition, Khanna asked how many resolutions were passed in the House condemning the 2016 “exodus” from Kairana in Muzaffarnagar.

“The incident of Jawahar Bagh took place, how many resolutions were passed? They (the then SP government) could have said that they will pass a resolution to condemn it,” Khanna said and accused the opposition of wasting the time of the House.

The then BJP MP Hukum Singh had in June 2016 claimed that close to 350 Hindus had left Kairana over alleged threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community.

More than 20 people, including the two police officials, were killed in June 2016 during a drive to evict squatters at Jawahar Bagh.

With the agitating opposition members refusing to end the protest on the Manipur issue and return to their seats, the House was adjourned for the day by the Speaker.

The issue came up in the UP Legislative Council too where SP members staged a protest in the upper house over women being paraded naked on the streets of Manipur. When the proceedings began at 11 am, SP MLC Lal Bihari Yadav and other members of his party pressed over discussing the Manipur issue first.

Chairperson Kunwar Manvendra Singh asked them to raise the matter after the Question Hour and that he would listen to the matter during the Zero Hour, but the opposition members refused to relent and continued their protest, following which the chairman adjourned the house for the day. PTI NAV SLM SNS