Congress alleges partiality by Gujarat Assembly Speaker

The Gujarat Congress today alleged that Assembly Speaker Ganpat Vasava's conduct in running the House is "partial" and "biased", which according to the Congress, is against the high traditions, rules and ethos of the state Assembly.
During his interaction with reporters after today's session, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Shankersinh Vaghela claimed that Vasava works in favour of the BJP-led Gujarat government instead of protecting the rights of all members of the House, especially from the opposition party.
According to Vaghela, the Speaker did not allow discussion on many important issues and rejected their demands to call for a Zero-Hour.

"Under Rule Number 116 of the Gujarat Assembly, which deals with matters of urgent public interest, we have given as many as 26 notices this session," Vaghela said.
"However, only a handful of notices under Rule Number 116 were accepted, while all other notices were rejected by the Speaker. Further, the Chair also refused to allow Zero-Hour discussion, claiming that it is not our tradition. However, I clearly remember that ten Zero-Hour discussions were allowed by the erstwhile Speaker in 1994," Vaghela claimed.
The Leader of Opposition also slammed the Speaker for not doing enough to control "sponsored" questions by ruling party members.

"Instead of questions related to problems faced by the people of their constituencies, BJP MLAs ask sponsored questions, which always appreciate the government. In addition, ministers are allowed to give long answers, which consume more time and save themselves from tough questions, since the Question Hour is limited to just one hour," Vaghela alleged.