PDP’s deputy speaker resigns

Srinagar:  “Disappointed” by speaker Mohammad Akhbar Lone’s remarks that he should resign and take charge of his party’s spokesman, deputy speaker legislative assembly from opposition PDP, Sartaj Madni Tuesday resigned from the post. Madni, also Member Legislative Assembly from Devsar, said that he was disappointed by the remarks by Lone carried by the press about the proceeding in the House on Tuesday last during which PDP MLAs were marshaled out. “Even as you have invoked decorum of the House to justify your partisan and often unparliamentary conduct as Speaker, I have never seen any action by any presiding officer that compromised the dignity and decorum of an august forum like ours, as your interview has done,” he said in a letter to the speaker. Mohammad Akhbar Lone had reportedly accused the deputy speaker of joining protests along with his party MLAs and had suggested him to resign and join as spokesman of PDP. Madni said that speaker created a parliamentary history of his own during the last two years and didn’t want to dwell on it. “But in your press interview I think you have beaten even your own standards of functioning as the honourable Speaker. It is for the first time that the custodian of the House, as Speaker is supposed to be, anywhere in the democratic world goes to town outside the House to launch a smear campaign against the opposition. Referring to recent proceeding in Lok Sabha, he said that uproar was witnessed for entire session. “How many times did the honourable Speaker of Lok Sabha or Chairman of the Rajya Sabha use marshals to keep decorum of the House? Or how many times did they go to press to threaten opposition? You are obviously following not the established parliamentary practices and traditions to run the House but are following your party’s policy of beating everybody into submission.”He said that while the government run by his party has converted the State into a large prison and a constitutional wasteland, “Speaker is trying to run the House that is the repository of aspirations of our people, as personal estate that would be run through marshals and not in the democratic spirit of accommodation, debate and discussion.” “You have in particular trained your guns on me as Deputy Speaker. You have been hauling up government functionaries and prosecuting media persons for daring to speak the truth, under the cover of legislative immunity. Would the Deputy Speaker of the same House not be entitled even to the courtesy of a private discussion if he does not enjoy even a fraction of the similar constitutional safeguards as your majesty does?” He said that the speaker was supposed t be the guardian of every member’s privileges. “Who protects them when you yourself choose to go to press during a session and use unbecoming expressions even against the senior most and highly respected members? In your wisdom you have thought it fit to advise me to resign from my post. You have cited my intervention in the marshalling out of honourable members as the reason of my quitting the Deputy Speakers position. I may very humbly submit the any person with a human heart and conscience would intervene when someone, even not an MLA, is being physically assaulted and injured for raising his voice in defense of the people who are victims of their own government’s atrocities. I can assure you that I will continue with the habit,” he wrote in the letter, a statement here to.    “I therefore tender my resignation from the post of the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly with utmost humanity and my personal regard for all the honourable members of the House,” he said in a letter to the speaker.