Opposition leader V D Satheesan on Wednesday shot off a missive to Speaker A N Shamseer against an allegedly unprecedented move from the Legislative Secretariat to downgrade a heap of priority questions submitted by opposition legislators for the Assembly session that will begin on October 4.
According to Satheesan, 49 notices given by opposition MLAs on issues that had rocked Kerala in recent times have not been imparted 'star' status and instead were relegated as 'unstarred' questions.
As a consequence, Satheesan said that opposition legislators had been denied the chance to seek a direct reply from the Chief Minister on a host of issues that had caused deep anxiety in the public mind.
It is only through a 'starred' question that an MLA can hope to secure an oral reply from the government on the floor of the House. For an ‘unstarred’ question, the ministers need to provide only a written reply.
In his letter, the opposition leader said that 49 notices of opposition legislators, all of which sought direct answers from the Chief Minister, were relegated to the ‘unstarred’ domain. These include questions related to the ADGP-RSS meeting, the infiltration of communal elements in the police, the disruption of Thrissur pooram, the police-gold smuggling link, the alleged criminal links of the Chief Minister’s political secretary P Sasi, the disappearance of Mohammad Aattoor, and the ‘kafir’ screenshot controversy connected to the Vadakara Lok Sabha campaign.
The Legislative Secretariat has 'unstarred' the questions in these notices citing three reasons. One, there is no public interest involved. Two, these are questions related to local matters. Three, these do not have the importance to be taken up in the floor of the House.
The opposition leader said that the Legislative Secretariat did not even bother to contact the office of the MLAs or even the concerned parliamentary party offices, as is the norm, before the questions were divided into 'starred' and 'unstarred'.
He said that if at all more clarity was required, the Speaker could have, under Clause 39 of the Assembly Rules and Procedures, called upon the MLA and asked him why he required an oral answer and then, after listening to the member's explanation, could have applied his discretion.
"Even this process has not taken place. None of the MLAs who had given these notices were called," Satheesan said, and added: "It is clear that there has been a deliberate move to avoid questions that the CM would have found difficult to reply in the floor of the House," Satheesan said.
Satheesan said that the opposition's charge that the ADGP in charge of law and order had met top RSS leaders had been backed by evidence. As for the disruption of Thrissur pooram, Satheesan said that a former minister himself (CPI's V S Sunil Kumar) had revealed that there was a conspiracy. And the allegations of moral turpitude and corruption against the ADGP and the Chief Minister's political secretary were raised by an LDF MLA (P V Anvar), he said.
With the status of these questions lowered, the CM has been spared of giving a direct reply on the floor of the House to any of these controversial issues.
The opposition leader has sought strong action against officials who were behind converting these notices into ‘unstarred’ questions flouting Kerala Assembly rules and procedures, the Speaker's own directives and also various rulings related to the editing of questions submitted by MLAs.