Assembly revokes suspension of 10 Oppn legislators

The Maharashtra Assembly on Friday revoked suspension of 10 opposition legislators who had been suspended for unruly behaviour while the budget was being presented in the House.

On April 1, the Assembly had revoked the suspension of five NCP and four Congress MLAS and with Friday’s decision, suspension of all the 19 MLAS has been revoked.

The resolution for revoking suspension was passed by the ruling members — BJP and Shiv Sena — even as the Opposition was absent in the lower house on the last day of the budget session. The Opposition boycotted the proceedings to protest against the suspension and to support the farm loan waiver.

The 10 legislators who were reprieved are Amar Kale, Vijay Wadettiwar, Harshwardhan Sapkal, Jaykumar Gore, Kunal Patil from Congress and Bhaskar Jadhav, Jitendra Awhad, Madhusudan Kendre, Rahul Jagtap and Sangram Jagtap from NCP.

Nineteen opposition legislators were suspended on March 22 for disrupting the proceedings and burning copies of the budget. The legislators had created a ruckus inside the Assembly demanding a loan waiver for the farmers while the state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar was presenting the annual budget. Taking cognisance of their unruly behaviour, the government moved a motion to suspend the 19 unruly MLAS for nine months. Following this, the Opposition leaders boycotted Assembly proceedings.