India News | Tripura CPI MLAs Walk out of Assembly Alleging Throttling of Opposition Voices

Agartala, Sep 21 (PTI) Opposition CPI(M) MLAs on Monday staged a walkout from Tripura Assembly in protest against exclusion of question-answer session and an alleged attempt to "throttle opposition voices" in the House. The Assembly also passed 10 bills, including one which diluted provisions of a labour law, without any debate during the one-day monsoon session.

After obituary references and presentation of the Business Advisory Committee's report, CPI(M) MLA Tapan Chakraborty asked why the question-answer session was excluded, but his microphone was switched off within seconds after he started speaking.

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Leader of opposition Manik Sarkar posed the same question, but his microphone was also switched off in less than a minute.

Sixteen MLAs of the CPI(M), led by Sarkar, then shouted slogans, displayed placards against alleged stifling of democratic voices inside the Assembly and staged a walk- out.

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Later, Sarkar told reporters that they wanted to participate in the proceedings but had to walk out as they were not allowed to speak inside the House.

The former chief minister said that CPI(M) legislators wanted to discuss problems faced by people during the COVID-19 crisis, "attack" on activists of opposition political parties but their voices were throttled in the House.

Sarkar said that the Assembly session is being organised in the context of severe economic crisis arising out of COVID-19 pandemic, and the chief minister's alleged threat to journalists.

"The Assembly session is being held in such a situation but there is no scope to speak on issues faced by people. Ten bills were placed and all were passed without discussion. This is sheer show of force (by the ruling BJP). Unless we can speak, why should we be there?" Sarkar asked.

The bills which were passed included The Industrial Disputes (Tripura second amendment) Bill, 2020, which sought to dilute provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act.

Another bill that ratified an ordinance issued in March for slashing the salaries of legislators by 30 per cent in view of the COVID-19 situation was also passed.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said that the number of COVID-19 deaths in Tripura is "almost negligible" and the government is trying to provide the best healthcare facilities to people.

"Tripura is the only state where door-to-door survey was done to identify people with risk potential. Health department reports of last five years show that 18-24 people died every day (in Tripura). Now 19-23 people are dying on a single day, including seven COVID-19 patients. "So, the number of COVID-19 deaths is very negligible. The COVID-19 patients are dying due to co-morbidities like cardiac ailments, brain stroke, chronic liver failure etc," Deb said in his statement.

Out of the 22,032 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the state till now, 245 died.

The chief minister said that 67 per cent of those who died had co-morbidities. Deb said that the state government has ramped up supply of protective gears, medicines, equipment besides increasing testing facilities to tackle the pandemic.

In the 60-member assembly, the ruling BJP-IPFT has 44 members and the CPI-M has 16 representatives.

(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)