Cong, Shiv Sena try to snatch speaker’s mace

Assembly proceedings was adjourned for the day

The proceedings of the assembly's monsoon session were adjourned for the day when Shiv Sena legislator Pratap Sarnaik and Congress legislator Nitesh Rane tried to snatch the ceremonial mace from the table of the speaker during a motion on the Nanar petrochemical refinery project. Outside the Vidhan Bhavan, Project-Affected People (PAPs) from Nanar staged a dharna.

The session was drowned out in the ruckus over Nanar. However, Haribhau Bagade, speaker of the Lower House, has permitted a half-hour discussion moved by Rane on Thursday. In the Upper House, the Congress's Bhai Jagtap will also raise the same issue on Thursday.

Both the Shiv Sena and the Congress, had moved an adjournment motion on the Nanar issue. Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, opposition leader, demanded he be allowed to speak first on the issue, but the Sena claimed it had submitted the motion before the Congress did. Sena legislator Sunil Prabhu demanded that the party members be allowed to speak first on the issue as they wanted to participate in a morcha opposing the project. Nitesh Rane of the Congress said he should be allowed to speak first since he is the local MLA and his party had submitted an adjournment notice.

He represents the Kankavli assembly constituency in Sindhudurg district, Konkan.

Sena members stuck to their demand and stormed into the well of the House while Vikhe-Patil was trying to speak. The ensuing pandemonium forced Speaker Bagde to adjourn the proceedings four times, and later, for the day, when Sarnaik and Rajan Salvi of the Sena and Rane of the Congress tried to snatch his mace.

Vikhe-Patil termed the act of mace-snatching as a stunt by Sena legislators. "If the Sena is serious on the Nanar issue, they should immediately quit the government," said Vikhe-Patil.

He added, "If the Speaker had allowed Sena to speak on Nanar before opposition party members, I would have resigned from the post of Leader of Opposition for the insult of opposition party."

Meanwhile, PAPs reached Vidhan Bhavan and staged a daylong protest. According to Ashok Walam, leader of the Prakalpa Virodhi Samgharsh Samiti, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis called him for a discussion on the issue, an offer he rejected. "I was called by CM Fadnavis, but we refused to meet him. I conveyed our message that if the CM wants to meet us, he should announce the date of scrapping of the project," said Walam.

“As the CM told the House the project would not be set up in Nanar, but elsewhere in western coastal region, he should clarify where, as the this region's boundaries extend from Konkan to Gujarat,” Walam demanded.

Sena members stuck to their demand and stormed into the well of the House while Vikhe-Patil was trying to speak