BJP MLAs suspended for ruckus in Telangana Assembly

Hyderabad: All five BJP MLAs were suspended from the Telangana assembly today for allegedly creating din in the House over the "arrests" of party workers, opposing the TRS government's plan to grant reservation to the Muslims.

As soon as the House assembled in the morning, all five MLAs of the BJP rushed to the well and demanded release of the party workers, who, they said, have been arrested by police.

With the agitating BJP members paying no heed to Speaker Madhusudan Chary's repeated requests to maintain order in the House, the treasury benches reacted demanding their suspension.

Speaker Chary eventually suspended the BJP MLAs for two days as they rushed to the Speaker's podium, raising slogans against the state government.

The Telangana unit of the BJP earlier today had called for a "Chalo Assembly" protest against the state government's to grant reservation to the Muslims in state jobs and educational institutions.

In the House, the BJP moved an adjournment motion on the issue of "arrests" and the government's move to shift the traditional sit-in venues, known as "Dharna Chowk" in Indira Park, to somewhere else.

The Speaker, however, rejected the motion.

Lending support to the suspended members, the Congress MLAs staged s walkout protesting against the government's "attitude".

The BJP floor leader Kishan Reddy said "thousands" of party workers have been "arrested" by the police in last three days.

A police official said several BJP workers were taken into preventive custody from different parts of the city as they tried to march to the assembly complex.

"We have a democratic right to protest. The government cannot bully us. Thousand of our workers are being arrested by the police for the past two or three days," Reddy told PTI.

Later, the police detained Reddy and the state unit BJP president K Laxman along with their supporters.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao in January this year had told the Assembly that a bill providing 12 per cent reservation to backward sections among Muslims would be introduced in the budget session of the House. This quota was a key election promise of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS).