RANCHI : The ruckus continues in the monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly for the second consecutive day following which Speaker Ravindra Mahato on Thursday suspended 18 BJP MLAs for 2 days after the ‘Sleep in House’ protest.

The MLAs have been suspended till 2 pm on August 2. The BJP MLAs have been staging ‘dharna’ since Wednesday afternoon. They staged a dharna in the well of the House and when marshalled out from there they shifted to the corridors at around 10 pm. Finally, they were moved outside the Assembly late in the night at around 2 pm.

The MLAs who have been suspended include Anant Ojha, Raj Sinha, Neera Yadav, Kishun Das, CP Singh, Kedar Hazra, Aparna Sengupta, Biranchi Narayan, Samri Lal, Navin Jaiswal, Shashi Bhushan Mehta, Pushpa Devi, Narayan Das, Koche Munda, Bhanu Pratap Shahi and Amit Mandal.

Earlier in the morning, as the House commenced, the BJP MLAs continued their protests raising their demand to seek an answer from Chief Minister Hemant Soren on various issues.

JMM MLA Sudivya Sonu, however, moved a proposal to act against the protesting MLAs for ‘taking the House to ransom’. Acting immediately on the proposal of JMM MLAs, the Speaker suspended all 18 MLAs staging protests in the House till 2 pm on Friday.

Interestingly, the Jharkhand assembly witnessed an unprecedented move by the BJP MLAs on Wednesday, where they trooped into the well of the House and remained there even after the House was adjourned by Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto, seeking answers from Chief Minister Hemant Soren on various issues.

Marshals bring Jharkhand BJP MLAs out of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly during their protest amid the ongoing Monsoon session, in Ranchi, Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

Assembly adjourned, but NDA MLAs’ protest in House continues. The BJP MLAs were adamant on their stand saying that they would not leave the House till they get their answers from the Chief Minister himself and will stage ‘dharna’ inside the House throughout the night.

The BJP MLAs were marshalled out at around 11 pm. However, they refused to come out of the Assembly premises and slept on the floor of the corridor throughout the night and again sat on ‘dharna’ in the morning.

According to NDA MLAs, this is the last session of the fifth Jharkhand Assembly and the Chief Minister wants to avoid questions from the opposition.

The leader of the Opposition has termed the suspension of the BJP MLAs as the black chapter of the Jharkhand Assembly. He alleged that at the behest of ruling party MLA Sudivya Kumar Sonu, the Speaker has suspended all the BJP members indecently.