The Hindu : Speaker, minister differ on discussion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

Speaker, minister differ on discussion

By Our Special Correspondent

Bangalore March 5. The Legislative Assembly today witnessed serious differences of opinion between the Speaker, M.V. Venkatappa, and the Forest Minister, K.H. Ranganath, who expressed reservations about the former referring to the delimitation of constituencies in the House.

Contending that it was not a good precedent for the Chair to allow to go on record any discussion on the delimitation of constituencies, Mr. Ranganath, a former Speaker, said the Speaker should not have agreed to associate himself as a member of the State Committee of the Delimitation Commission.

Mr. Venkatappa pointed out that it was on the direction of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha that the names of 20 presiding officers were included in the State committees. He said that the House was not discussing delimitation but only disapproving of press reports to remove confusion. However, Mr. Ranganath maintained that nothing should be allowed to go on record.

He said that the delimitation proposals were coming up before the House, and there would also be a public hearing. The chair ruled it would go through the proceedings and decide whether they should go on record or not.

It was the JD(U) floor leader, P.G.R. Sindhia, who referred to press reports which had led to confusion among legislators over their future, as a mention was made about creation of 45 reserved constituencies.

Agreeing with him, the Leader of the Opposition, Jagadish Shettar, said the reports had caused speculation, and sought a clarification from the Speaker to remove confusion.

The initial objection to the matter being raised came from the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, D.B. Chandre Gowda, who said the discussion did not fall within the purview of the House.

The Speaker clarified at the outset that he was not the chairman of the State Committee on Delimitation. An impression was created by press reports that "as chairman, he had failed to convene a meeting", and this had caused confusion over delimitation, he said.

He said the State had not received any working paper or booklet on the 224 constituencies from the Delimitation Commission headed by the former Supreme Court Judge, Kuldip Singh, which had reportedly prepared the material.

The material was expected by the end of this month. It was proposed to seek two or three weeks' time for the committee to forward its views after considering the local situation. He was intervening only to appeal to the people not to go by speculative reports and to remove the confusion.

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Speaker, minister differ on discussion