CM describes disruptions as Black Day in history of democracy

 Describing the unsavoury incidents witnessed inside the Assembly Hall and outside it as a ‘Black Day in the history of democracy, Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday apologised  to Governor ESL Narasimhan on behalf of the state government and the people.

The Chief Minister was addressing media persons at the Assembly Committee Hall after the address of Governor was disrupted by Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Telugu Desam Party MLAs. Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy condemned the incident in which the MLAs tried to snatch the speech from the Governor’s hands and tried to physically move him while the Governor was addressing the Joint Session of both Houses.

He also criticised the TRS MLAs for tearing copies of the Governor’s address and threw the pieces in the air.

The incidents led to the Governor being forced to skip a major portion of his address and rushing through his speech, to complete it inside 10 minutes. The entire Session barely lasted less than 15 minutes.

Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy also condemned the attack on Lok Satta Party president Jayaprakash Narayan allegedly by Telangana Rashtra Samithi activists at Media Point on the Assembly premises.

The Chief Minister said that the elected members have violated their democratic rights and resorted to physical attacks in a barbaric manner.

Instead of resorting to physical attack, the representatives of the August bodies should have discussed their grouses in a peaceful manner, the Chief Minister lamented.

“The elected representatives have a right to protest and press for solutions to their problems. But they should not resort to physical attacks and infringe on the rights of others,” he stated.

Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy revealed that he had asked Deputy Speaker Nadendla Manohar to take steps to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in future. He also said that he had advised Mr Manohar to increase the security inside the House to protect the elected representatives.