Pepper spray used in Lok Sabha as Telangana bill tabled

Hyderabad: A bill to create a new state was introduced in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, amid unprecedented scenes of lawmakers coming to blows and opponents of the law tearing copies to pieces and damaging property in the building.

The Telangana bill seeks to divide Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and the residual state of Andhra Pradesh — with Hyderabad becoming the joint capital of the two states for not more than 10 years.

Anti-Telangana member L. Rajagopal used pepper spray in the House creating commotion and making some ill to the extent that doctors had to be called in to attend on badly-coughing lawmakers. Some representatives also had to be taken to a nearby hospital. The massive Lok Sabha hall had to be ventilated to get rid of the pepper spray odour.

Trouble started as soon as the Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde rose to introduce the Andhra Pradesh State Reorganisation Bill, as the bill is known.

Though the threat of one anti-Telangana member, Sabbam Hari, of committing self immolation in the House did not materialise, fire extinguishers and blankets were kept ready in the hall to deal with any attempt to self immolate.

Angered by the pepper spray incident, several lawmakers called for a change of House rules. Members are exempted from body frisking while entering the Parliament building, but that may change.

“I am told that pepper powder and weapons were brought in to the House”, said Kamal Nath, the minister for Parliamentary affairs.

There were allegations that one Telugu Desam member Venugopal brandished a knife but he denied it. Venugopal was seen uprooting a mike while another member threw a computer on the floor.

Members from Telangana supporting the bill clashed with those from Seemandhra regions of Andhra Pradesh opposing it.

Rajagopal, who was later suspended from the House along with other members, said he took the action in protest against the bill.

“The government cannot bring this bill,” he shouted.

Speaker Meira Kumar said of the incident, “It has shamed us”.

Apart from the Seemandhra members, the Speaker also suspended three Congress members from Telangana — Gutta S. Reddy, K Rajagopal Reddy and Ponam Prabhakar — who had clashed with the Seemandhra members.

The members will remain suspended for the remaining period of the current session.

The House was adjourned until 3pm in view of the pandemonium.

Similar scenes were witnessed in the upper house, the Rajya Sabha, where the Seemandhra members rushed to the podium and protested strongly against the bill.

In Hyderabad, Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, had threatened to resign. However, he had not done so at the time of writing.

Reacting to the incidents in Lok Sabha, Reddy said: “Problems can be resolved only through discussions”.