BRS protests over lack of quorum in Assembly

He accused BRS members of unnecessarily creating a problem and disrupting the proceedings of the House.

Hyderabad: The BRS members on Wednesday tried to corner the treasury benches on the issue of quorum in the State assembly. As soon as the House met, BRS members led by T Harish Rao raised the issue of quorum and said that since there was no quorum, the House could not function and all the BRS members left the House for some time.

However, Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu clarified that the necessary members were present in the House and that the business could be taken up. “There are 18 members in the House right now and it is enough to run the business. As per assembly rules 12 members are sufficient to meet the quorum,” he said.

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He accused BRS members of unnecessarily creating a problem and disrupting the proceedings of the House. “Harish Rao and Vemula Prashanth Reddy have held the Legislative Affairs Minister’s portfolio and knew the rules but still to mislead the people they were raising the quorum issue,” he alleged.

BRS member Kadiyam Srihari brought to the notice of the Speaker that the session was not beginning as per scheduled at 10 am and that daily, it was being delayed by a few minutes.

“My humble request to the Chair is that we should not deviate from the assembly rules and traditions and start the session as per schedule,” he said.

Srihari pointed out the absence of the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister during the discussion on the Vote on Account budget and wanted to know who would give the reply. Sridhar Babu infomed that the Deputy Chief Minister’s delay was due to unavoidable circumstances and that officials were present to answer the queries of the opposition members.