MUMBAI, 18 July 2007 — An incident which never ever occurred in the history of both the houses of Maharashtra legislature, happened yesterday afternoon, the second day of the monsoon session, when both houses were plunged into darkness for quite some time as the session was in progress, leading to chaos and uproar. Electricity was restored with the help of emergency generators.
Legislators in both the houses were agitated over the tripping of electricity. Senior legislator in the state assembly and Peasants and Workers’ Party (PWP) leader Ganpatrao Deshmukh demanded that the house be adjourned for the day in protest for an incident which never took place ever in the history of the assembly before. Opposition leader Ramdas Kadam of the Shiv Sena and other opposition legislators too joined Deshmukh in seeking adjournment the house over the incident and created noisy scenes.
Energy Minister Dilip Walse-Patil then stood up and told the legislators that the electricity to both the houses is not supplied by the state electricity board, but by Tata and BEST and said that an inquiry into the incident would be made to find out as to exactly which company was responsible for the disruption in electricity, and what was the exact technical problem for the electricity failure. The inquiry report, Patil said would be placed in both the houses.
The minister's reply failed to satisfy the agitated legislators who continued to press for adjournment of both the houses. Finally, the speaker of the assembly, Babasaheb Kupekar, intervened and cooled down the tempers by stating that the incident was indeed grave and that the government should take precautionary measures to ensure that such incidents do not take place in future.
Meanwhile Revenue Minister Narayan Rane demanded the cancellation of membership of Ramdas Kadam, on the lines of the suspension of some members of Parliament in the “cash for questions” scam some months ago.
Rane alleged that Kadam and another legislator Devendra Satam had listed a Legislative Assembly Question (LAQ) in February on the alleged irregularities committed by an executive engineer of Public Works Department of Satara district. The listed question was later withdrawn in March by Kadam, and thus he had also committed irregularities in this case, Rane alleged.
