Around 20 Congress MLAs were suspended for a day by Gujarat Assembly Speaker Ganpat Vasava today after they rushed into the well of the House and started shouting slogans against the state government on the issue of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for cotton.
On the last day of Assembly session today, Congress MLA from Jamnagar-Rural Raghavji Patel interrupted the proceedings of the House and insisted a debate on the MSP offered to cotton growing farmers, as he claimed that the MSP is very low.
Patel was also unhappy over Speaker's decision of not including his question about the MSP in the Question Hour.
However, Speaker stopped him from raking up the issue and claimed that the decision of not including his question was taken by former speaker.
As an interim solution, Vasava asked Patel to discuss the issue with state Agriculture Minister in his office after the day's proceedings end.
Not convinced, Patel along with many other Congress MLAs started shouting slogans "Give justice to farmers". They came prepared with placards having such texts and rushed to the well of the House.
After repeated warnings, Vasava finally suspended these 20-odd MLAs who entered the well and were protesting while asking the marshals to take them out of the House.
Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition (LoP) Shankersinh Vaghela, former LoP and senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil and Congress Chief Whip Balwantsinh Rajput along with 10 other MLAs, who were not suspended as they had not entered the well of the house, walked out of the House in their support.
Speaking to reporters outside the Assembly, Vaghela said the state government is trying to silence the voice of peoples' representatives.
"To save the cotton growing farmers from incurring huge losses, our MLA asked the government to declare Rs 1500/ 20 kg as the MSP for purchasing cotton from them. However, we were not allowed to raise this issue. It seems that government is running away from real issues," alleged Vaghela.
