UP Assembly Goes Off Rails, Opposition Strikes on LPG Hike, CAA

Opposition members carried placards and raised slogans on issues like CAA, unemployment, increase in the LPG prices.

UP Budget session goes off the rails as Opposition party members hold placards protesting against CAA and LPG price hike.

(Photo: ANI)

The Budget session of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly got off to a noisy start on Thursday, 13 February, with Opposition members shouting anti-government slogans and carrying LPG cylinders on their backs during Governor Anandiben Patel's address to the joint sitting of both the Houses, reports news channel NDTV.

A large number of Samajwadi Party MLA’s, wearing crimson caps, marched into the centre of the House holding placards, some even sitting down as the Governor Anandiben Patel rose to make her speech.

Opposition members displayed placards and raised slogans on issues ranging from the amended citizenship law, unemployment, farmer distress and increase in the LPG prices as the governor read out her address.

They were also agitated over the crime situation in the state, the steep hike in the price of domestic LPG cylinders and the delay in the payment of arrears to sugarcane farmers.

Carrying placards that read, ‘Naujawano Ko Rozar Do’, ‘Kisan Virodhi Bhajpa Sarkar Gaddi Chodo’ and ‘Humko CAA Nahi Shanti Chahiye’, SP members staged a protest before the statue.

The SP legislators were led by leaders of Opposition in both the Houses, Ram Govind Chaudhary (Assembly) and Ahmed Hasan (Council).

Government Has Electrocuted Household Budgets: Congress

Slamming the government over the increase in the LPG prices, Congress Spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said, “The government has electrocuted the budgets of Indian households”.

The Congress leader said that with one stroke, the government has pocketed Rs 43,562 crore annually from the people.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on Thursday, took a dig at the BJP over the LPG cylinders’ price hike by tweeting a UPA-era picture of the saffron party's leaders protesting an increase in prices of cooking gas at the time, and demanded a rollback.

"I agree with these members of the BJP as they protest the astronomical 150 Rs price hike in LPG cylinders," Gandhi tweeted along with the picture of BJP leaders, including Smriti Irani, protesting the rise in cooking gas prices.

(with inputs from news channel NDTV, PTI and IANS)