Remarks row rocks Telangana Assembly

As the House began, members from Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), who came to the House with pink shirts and black badges, raised the issue of police personnel attacking two women legislators P Sabita Indra Reddy and V Sunitha Lakshma Reddy the day before. 

Responding to this, Speaker Gaddam Prasad Kumar said that a member of the BRS had commented against him, referring to remarks of BRS MLC Tata Madhusudhan on Monday. 

“Your member made comments against me. I will not be afraid of your high volume. We have respect towards women. I also have eight sisters. Your member abused and talked against my mother and not yours. 

First talk on this. After coming to know of the incident, I called for a report from the police,” said the Speaker.

Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu said that the Congress party had respect towards women, and both the legislators were with the party in the past. “The Speaker and the Chief Minister sought a report on this. 

However, the BRS leadership should have expressed regrets over the comments against the Speaker,” he remarked. 

He also said that the issue was related to the Assembly premises as the incident happened at Gate No 3. He said that he too had two sisters and had respect towards other women. 

While all this was going on, the BJP members came into well seeking discussion on Section 22A lands issue. 

Speaking on the issue of BRS MLCs, Minister Adluri Laxman Kumar said that they had thought the BRS members would express regrets over the behaviour of their members but they didn’t. “You should be ashamed to talk. You are doing politics. 

The Speaker must take up inquiry and take action. Harish Rao threw his t-shirt in front of the women police,” the Minister said. 

Responding to this, Harish Rao said that there were videos which clearly showed that male police throttled Sabita Reddy and sari of Sunitha Reddy was pulled.

 While all this was happening, the police booked cases against these two women along with Kova Lakshmi. 

This is nothing but an attack on the women of the state, alleged Rao. He said that they had respect towards the Speaker. 

“Our party MLC has clearly said he did not intend to use the words against the Speaker and also announced withdrawing his comments if the Speaker felt the comments were against him,” Rao explained. 

Speaker G Prasad Kumar skips House, seeks apology from KCR Minister Dhanasri Anasuya (Seethakka) urged the Speaker to bring out the visuals. 

She underlined the need to find out who had pushed the women MLAs. She also questioned the need to remove T-shirts. She said that the BRS members didn’t even express regret on the Speaker’s issue. She demanded stringent action against MLC. Government whip Ramchandra Naik alleged that women MLAs were pushed by some BRS MLAs. 

“They came to the Assembly like bouncers in the pub. Don’t come to the House with new costumes every day, come for discussion. The people who shunted out their own sister were talking about other women,” said Naik. 

He urged the Speaker to suspend Padi Kaushik Reddy, Tata Madhu and Naveen Reddy. He urged the Speaker not to give mike until KCR tenders apologies on the Speaker’s issue. 

The BJLP leader A Maheshwar Reddy urged the Speaker to take up the discussion on Section 22A lands instead of wasting the time on apologies. 

In the meantime, the BRS MLAs came into the well and raised slogans. They were stopped by the marshals and. With pandemonium prevailing in the House, the Speaker adjourned the House for 15 minutes. 

After the Assembly was reconvened, a discussion was held on the remarks made by BRS MLC Madhu and the House adopted a resolution demanding disciplinary action against him and another BRS MLC Naveen Reddy. 

The resolution was sent to the Legislative Council which later suspended both the MLCs for the current session.