By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Continuing its protest against the Odisha Assembly Speaker SN Patro’s unfair role in the House, the Opposition BJP Members on Saturday staged a walkout and sat on dharna in front of Gandhi statue on Odisha Assembly premises after staging a walkout from the House.
The BJP MLAs alleged that Speaker Patro of being biased and not allowing them to raise various issues in the Assembly.
Besides this, BJP members continued their slogan in the House demanding a CBI investigation into the Smitarani Biswal death case.
The initial protest began inside the House where the saffron party members staged a symbolic protest by Wearing black bands. Later, they staged a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue on the premises of Odisha Assembly.
Notably, Members of the BJP continued their protest in the Assembly on Friday by covering their mouths with black cloth.
On Friday, Leader of Opposition, Pradipta Naik said, the party members would protest it by keeping silent in the House. Instead the BJP members would rather silently sit in the house to protest on different issues, Naik added.
Naik said that Speaker Patro has not been allowing the BJP and especially the Leader of the Opposition to speak on important issues like the controversial death of village-level worker Smita Ranjan Biswal.
“It was perhaps because of unfair role of Speaker, in the history of Odisha Assembly such things hardly occur when the Opposition leader is standing and wants to speak but the Speaker is not ready to allow him to do so,” Naik said.
“We have decided to sit silently in the House at our place with black tapes attached to our mouth. We have been forced to adapt this form of protest,” Naik told reporters.
Naik also said that the BJP is not satisfied with the investigation being conducted regarding the death of Biswal. He stated that a murder FIR should be lodged regarding the death of Biswal. He also said that the Jajpur SP should be suspended for the insensitive remarks he made against the deceased.
