Odisha Assembly Adjourned over Cooperative Bank Loan Scam and Lawyers’ Strike

Photograph: Ashok Panda

Bhubaneswar: Speaker Pradip Kumar Amat was forced to adjourn the Odisha Assembly on Tuesday due to uproar by the Opposition Congress and the BJP members over the Cooperative Bank Loan scam and the ongoing strike by lawyers in Cuttack.

As soon as the Question Hour began in the House at 10.30 am, BJP members rushed to the well of the House demanding a CBI probe into the Cooperative Bank Loan scam and sought a clarification from the minister.

On the other hand, the Congress members criticised the state government for not intervening in the ongoing agitation by lawyers of the Cuttack Bar Association in protest against the thrashing of a lawyer by the police in the city. They maintained that work in all the lower courts had stopped due to the lawyers’ strike.

Amid the uproar, the ruling BJD members protested the derogatory remark of a journalist Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a friend of former BJD leader and Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda on the Sun Temple at Konark, which has deeply hurt the sentiments of the people of Odisha. They also demanded a probe into the illegal flying of a helicopter by Panda over the Chilika Lake.

Unable to run the proceedings, the Speaker adjourned the House till 11.30 am.

Soon after the adjournment, the BJD members staged a dharna under the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the Assembly premises.