Pandemonium on Day 1 : TDP members stage walkout protesting against Guv for not safeguarding constitutional bodies

Vijayawada: The Budget session of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly witnessed pandemonium on day one. The opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) members raised slogans and disrupted Governor Biswabhusan Harichandan's customary address to the joint sitting of the two Houses.

Storming into the Well of the House, the TDP legislators tore the Governor's speech copies and flung them in the air, but Harichandan went ahead with his address. The TDP members raised slogans "Governor Go Back", alleging that he failed to safeguard the constitutional institutions. Midway through the Governor's address, however, the TDP members staged a walkout in protest.

They later tried to squat in the Assembly lobbies but the House Marshals objected to it, leading to an argument. But the TDP members prevailed and sat on a protest in the lobbies, raising slogans against the Governor.

At the end of his hour-long address, the Governor was safely escorted out of the legislature building after the Marshals ensured that the protesting TDP members did not cross the security cordon. This was the first time the Governor physically addressed the joint sitting of the AP Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly as in the previous two years he completed the formality in virtual mode through a video link owing to the Covid-19 outbreak. Later, when the Business Advisory Committee of the Assembly met to decide the session's agenda, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed serious displeasure over the TDP members' behaviour in the House.

"It's not right for you to insult an elderly person like the Governor. It never happened in the past," Reddy was said to have told TDP Legislature Party deputy leader K Atchannaidu. The Chief Minister remarked that the Governor did not belong to "our party or your party" and found fault with the opposition party's action. Subsequently, addressing a press conference, Atchannaidu said they had every respect for the institution of Governor.

"We had no choice today except to express our protest. The Governor has failed in upholding the Constitution and safeguarding the constitutional institutions when the Jagan regime has been brazenly attacking them. How could the Governor remain a mute spectator?" the TDP leader asked.

The Governor's address was full of falsehood, he alleged.

Atchannaidu mocked the Chief Minister's remark on "respecting the elders", saying it was the YSR Congress party that targeted even the family members of opposition leaders.