Seven BJP MLAs suspended from Delhi Assembly's Budget session

New Delhi, Feb 16 (PTI) Seven BJP MLAs were on Friday suspended for the remainder of the Budget session of the Delhi Assembly for interrupting the Lt Governor's address.

The BJP MLAs had interrupted Lt Governor VK Saxena multiple times during his address on Thursday as they sought to attack the Arvind Kejriwal government.

Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel had also sent the matter of disruption to the Privileges Committee.

AAP MLA Dilip Pandey moved a resolution in the House seeking action on this issue, which was accepted by the Speaker.

Pandey said that opposition members on Thursday acted in an "planned manner" while disrupting the LG's address which lowered the prestige of the House.

"It was unprecedented and unfortunate," he said.

While reading out from the rule book, he said the behaviour of the opposition members has lowered the dignity of the House, and demanded action.

Speaker Goel while accepting the resolution of Pandey, said the matter be sent to the Privileges Committee.

Seven members of the BJP barring Leader of Opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri be suspended from the proceedings of the House till the report is pending.

He later asked the seven members -Mohan Singh Bisht, Ajay Mahawar, OP Sharma, Abhay Verma, Anil Vajpayi, Jitender Mahajan and Vijender Gupta-- to leave the chamber of the House.

Leader of Opposition Bidhuri also walked out of the House in protest.

Goel had on Thursday asked marshals to escort the BJP MLAs out of the House after they had repeatedly interrupted the Lt Governor's address in the Budget session highlighting achievements of the AAP government.

Seven out of the eight BJP MLAs in the House, barring Leader of Opposition Bidhuri, were marshalled out by the Speaker for interrupting the LG's address on the first day of the session, Assembly officials had said.

As soon as Saxena started reading out his speech and cited achievements of the government in the field of education, BJP MLA Gupta interrupted him raising the issue of funding of 12 colleges of the Delhi University.

Other BJP MLAs alleged shortage of water, non-implementation of Ayushman Bharat scheme, poor condition of hospitals, electricity rates, with the LG continuing and concluding his address amid multiple interruptions.

The Budget session of the Delhi Assembly has been extended till the first week of March due to delay in budget finalisation. PTI