MLA lifts mace at speaker's table in Maha House; suspended

Maharashtra Assembly Deputy Speaker Vasant Purke on Tuesday suspended Shiv Sena legislator Om Raje Nimbalkar for lifting the mace from the speaker's table in protest against a minister's reply on the acute water scarcity in Osmanabad city of Marathwada region.

Purke, who was in the chair, asked the member to "get out," saying he has been suspended from attending the proceedings of the house for a year. Opposition members squatted in the well protesting Water Supply Minister Laxman Dhoble's unsatisfactory reply as well as the chair's suo motu decision, saying it was too harsh.

The house had to be adjourned twice for 15 minutes and later for 30 minutes. The incident occurred when the House was debating acute water scarcity in Osmanabad during question hour.

Opposition members were not satisfied with Dhoble's reply about what the government proposed to do to ensure adequate water supply to the city.

Nimbalkar said the Osmanabad district collector had probed the irregularities and asked the police to file cases against the guilty.

"Ten months have passed since the order, but police have not done anything. The collector also wrote to the superintendent of police asking him to file cases against the accused," the legislator said.

During the debate, he climbed the speaker's podium and lifted the mace, after which the Deputy Speaker asked him to get out and suspended him. Dhoble earlier told the house that he would get the collector's investigative report probed through a member secretary of the Jeevan Pradhikaran Authority.