Cong demands resignations of Uttarakhand Speaker state BJP chief after Agarwal's ouster

     Dehradun, Mar 21 (PTI) Former Uttarakhand Assembly speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal on Friday said the resignation of cabinet minister Premchand Agarwal was not enough and demanded the resignations of incumbent Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan and state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt also from their posts "for not being fair" to the hill people despite representing the hills themselves.
     Agarwal, who held key portfolios like finance and parliamentary affairs in the Pushkar Singh Dhami cabinet, resigned after his "unparliamentary" remarks against the hill people during the Budget Session created a major controversy.
     Kunjwal accused Speaker Bhushan of behaving in the House in a partisan manner like a political party leader despite occupying a constitutional post when the Agarwal episode was going on.
     Daughter of former chief minister B C Khanduri, the Speaker is an MLA from Kotdwar.
     "The Chair is supposed to be neutral. But her conduct was obviously partisan. She should have asked Agarwal to immediately take back his words and expunged it from the proceedings of the House but she did not. Her treatment of Lakhpat Singh Butola (Congress MLA from Badrinath) was also not fair as he was responding to Agarwal in a democratic manner," Kunjwal said at a press conference here.
     Reacting to the charge of bias against her, Bhushan said her job as the Speaker is to maintain the dignity of the House and run the proceedings with discipline.
     "My primary concern as Speaker is to maintain the dignity of the Assembly. It should not be hurt," she said.
     The Speaker also said there should be no hill-plain division in the state and people should only think about its development.
     "We should be proud being from Uttarakhand. Our belonging to the state is our only identity. We should all collectively think about its development," she said.
     Leader of Opposition and Congress MLA from Bajpur Yashpal Arya was also present at Kunjwal's press conference. Arya is also a former speaker of the state Assembly.
     When Butola was reacting to Agarwal's abusive reference to the hill people, the Speaker had asked him to take his seat as he had already made his point.
     When he continued to speak, saying the insult of hill people could not be taken lightly, the Speaker asked him to leave the House if he so wished.
     Butola left the House immediately after that.
     "Agarwal has resigned. But the Speaker and the state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt should also be asked to resign for not being fair to the hill people despite being from the hills themselves," Kunjwal said.
     If their resignation is not taken, it will confirm the BJP's divisive policy of driving a wedge between the hills and the plains, he said.
     On the charge that her treatment of Congress member Butola reflected a bias, the Speaker said, "It is being said that I rose from the seat and became aggressive. When the Speaker stands from the chair, it does not mean getting aggressive."
     "The rule is when the Speaker stands from the chair, the member should sit down. I allowed the member to speak almost every day of the session.
     "You can ask him. I did not ask him to leave as is being alleged. I only asked him to leave if he so wished when he threw down papers, pointed a finger at the chair and threatened to leave," she told PTI Videos in an interview.
     Bhatt had called the protesters in the hills demanding Agarwal's resignation "sadak chhap".

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)