The first day of the seven-seat autumn session of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly was marred by commotion and disruption of proceedings on Monday when BJP members reached the floor of the House and started shouting slogans protesting against various issues including daily wage workers, National Health Mission (NHM) employees, electricity rates and alleged failures of the Omar Abdullah-led government. They raised slogans and waved placards demanding action to regularize daily wage workers and resolve the problems of NHM workers.
BJP also raised the issue of increase in electricity rates. The members were raising slogans like do justice to daily wage workers and do justice to NHM workers. They also raised slogans of Bharat Mata Ki Jay and accused the government of failing to address the issues of the people. The situation became more tense when BJP members reached the floor of the House and raised slogans against the government. In response, the ruling benches, which included members of the National Conference and its allies, raised slogans demanding the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. Congress members were also seen shouting slogans of one push and two at the vote-stealing government.
Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather repeatedly appealed to the protesting BJP members to return to their seats and warned that action would be taken against them if the disruption continued. He also directed that certain slogans raised and statements made during the protest should not be made part of the official record of the proceedings of the assembly. Despite the noise, the question break continued and the ministers answered the questions raised by the members of the assembly. Deputy Chief Minister Surendra Chaudhary accused the opposition of deliberately disrupting the proceedings of the assembly for political purposes. He said that the government is ready to answer questions related to public issues. After the question break, National Conference member and retired Justice Hasnain Masoudi tabled the report of the House Committee set up to investigate the alleged irregularities in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday revealed that 40,672 government jobs are vacant in various departments under the direct recruitment quota.
These figures were presented by the in-charge minister in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in response to a question from Congress MLA Irfan Hafeez Lone.