By IANS,
Agartala : The Tripura state legislative assembly Friday witnessed bedlam after the speaker rejected an opposition-sponsored adjournment motion which sought discussion on the alleged fake Scheduled Caste-status of a ruling Left Front legislator.
As soon as the house assembled for the day on the first day of the monsoon session, members of the Congress and its ally Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) led by leader of opposition Ratan Lal Nath, vociferously condemned the Left Front government and the speaker for “sheltering the lawmaker”.
Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath adjourned the house for two hours after he failed to bring the house to order. Opposition members continued to create pandemonium.
The speaker told the agitated members that Governor D.Y. Patil or a tribunal of the Election Commission could take an appropriate step on the fake Scheduled Caste-status issue, though the matter is pending in the High Court.
The opposition Congress has been demanding the arrest of Left Front legislator Partha Das and the revocation of his membership of the Tripura assembly, alleging that he had falsely claimed to belong to the Scheduled Castes category.
After a lengthy probe, the screening committee of the Scheduled Castes Welfare Department of the Tripura government in July had served notice to Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) legislator Partha Das, saying that he did not belong to the Scheduled Castes category.
RSP is a constituent of the ruling Left Front, dominated by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).
The issue has rocked Tripura politics for the past two years.
Das was absent from the house Friday.
The opposition legislators boycotted the house when it reassembled after the two-hour adjournment to protest the rejection of their adjournment motion.