India News | GNCTD Act Change: 'Pained' Delhi Assembly Speaker Won't Allow BJP MLAs Speak over Allotted 20 Mins

New Delhi, Jul 29 (PTI) "Pained" by the recent move to make amendments in the GNCTD Act, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Thursday asserted that he would not allow BJP MLAs to speak even for a second beyond their 20-minute allotted time in the House, saying they did not oppose the Centre's move.

He said by adopting this system he was "merely doing what Lok Sabha does" in terms of time division for opposition and ruling party members.

Goel alleged that through amendments in the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, the Centre is trying to "snatch away" the power of Delhi Assembly committees.

"I am deeply pained over depriving House Committees of their powers by the Centre. I am in pain because it happened during my period as Assembly's Speaker. This has never happened on the history of the country. It is shameful," the Speaker said on the first day of the Monsoon Session.

Goel gave a ruling that there are three hours for discussion after removing lunch time from the proceedings and out of this two hours of sitting of the House will be devoted to question hour and special mention under Rule 280.

He stipulated that out of 180 minutes, the ruling party MLAs will get 160 minutes while opposition BJP legislators will be be allowed 20 minutes to speak.

"I am dividing this session timing in correspondence with the ratio of the members in the House. I will not allow opposition MLAs to speak for even one second extra than 20 minutes as per the House Rule," he said complaining that BJP legislators did not oppose disinvesting of House Committees of their powers.

He said by adopting this system he was "merely doing what Lok Sabha does" in terms of time division for opposition and ruling party members.

Goel said, "The centre snatched powers of the Assembly and I believe that the opposition members had involvement in this. They are members of the Delhi assembly and they must have acted against amendments to the GNCTD Bill, but they did nothing. The opposition kept quiet on the matter."

The GNCTD Amendment Bill 2021 was passed by the Centre in March this year which makes it clear that the "government" in Delhi means the "Lieutenant Governor".

The Bill makes it mandatory for the Delhi government to take the opinion of the lieutenant governor (L-G) before any executive action.

The bill also makes it mandatory for the Delhi government to take the opinion of the LG before any executive action.

The BJP has eight MLAs in the 70 member Assembly dominated by the ruling AAP that has 62 members in the House.

Instructing opposition MLAs, Goel also said, "It's up to you (BJP MLAs) whether you use these 20 minutes for debate or for disruption of the session. But, I won't allow you (BJP) more than 20 minutes."

Earlier in the day, the Speaker had suspended BJP legislator OP Sharma for using derogatory remarks against other MLAs and also marshalled out two BJP MLAs Vijender Gupta and Anil Bajpai for not letting the House function.

However, BJP MLA Gupta called it a "murder of democracy".

He said they were demanding action in alleged scam of DTC bus purchase.

"Murder of democracy by AAP goes unabated. We were marshalled out of assembly for demanding Breach of Privilege against minister @kgahlot for misleading the house on DTC Bus scam. AAP is a party of cowards & corrupt," Gupta tweeted.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)