MUMBAI: The Congress party-led Democratic Front government came under severe attack from the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (SS-BJP) alliance on the very first day of the monsoon session of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly.
Angry opposition party members raised slogans and moved an adjournment motion over the two-member Pradhan Committee report on last year’s Mumbai terror attacks and on its giving a clean chit to the Mumbai police and the state government.
Chief Minister Ashok Chavan assured the house that the report and Action Taken Report would be tabled before the conclusion of the session. “No clean chit has been given to anybody. Even Pradhan has not made such a statement when he came to hand over the report to me,” Chavan said in the House.
Members of the Sena-BJP combine had earlier shouted slogans demanding that Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, the lone terrorist captured during the attacks, be hanged. Chavan also condemned attempts by the opposition to divide the police force as “Marathi and non-Marathi”. His statement was in response to remarks by BJP leader Eknath Khadse that only Marathi police officers had come out to fight the terrorists and had been killed, while non-Marathi police officers had not participated in the fight against terrorists.
As soon as the proceedings of the Assembly commenced, leader of the opposition Ramdas Kadam of Shiv Sena said that the government was not tabling the report as it wanted to hide facts. Kadam said that the report has given a clean chit to the police. His arguments were supported by Khadse and Devendra Phadanvis.
