RS replay in Jammu and Kashmir: MLAs marshaled out

Jammu, Mar 17: A week after marshals had evicted MPs from the Rajya Sabha, two legislators were marshaled out of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Wednesday, drawing allegations of autocracy in the state from the evicted MLAs.

Two legislators of the state were forcibly evicted from the House with the help of marshals when they disrupted the proceedings by seeking to raise an issue concerning recruitment preference to backward districts.

The two MLAs - Engineer Abdul Rasheed (Independent) and Abdul Haq Khan (People's Democratic Party) - had during the Question Hour sought to the raise the issue of inter-district recruitments and asked government to table a long pending bill that seeks amendment into it.

They demanded that the former process of favouring people of the concerned district for recruitment should be re-introduced in place of the policy of the inter-district recruitments. The inter-district recruitment was started during the period of Congress-led coalition government headed by Gulam Nabi Azad in 2006.

When the Speaker refused to allow them the discussion, they pooled into the Well and raised slogans, forcing the Speaker to marshal them out after more than 10 minutes of unruly behaviour.

Defending his decision, the Speaker later said, "I cannot allow the Question Hour to be disrupted like this. So the MLAs were ordered to be marshaled out for smooth conduct of the House."

Rasheed, however, reacted strongly to the incident and said, "There is total autocracy prevailing in Jammu and Kashmir. Is there any democracy? The government has failed to reply to our concern over inter-district recruitments,"

He alleged that the government is 'sitting over' a Bill to amend the inter-district recruitments, since last year.