The Karnataka’s Congress party is likely to boycott an address by the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for the state’s legislators on Friday afternoon in the state Legislative Assembly hall. The theme of Birla's address will be 'Democracy - Safeguarding democratic values'. It will be the first time that Birla will be addressing the joint session of the two Houses of a Legislature. The meeting is at 2.30 p.m. on Friday.
The Congress party has stated that it is against the principle and spirit of the constitution and the ruling BJP is violating the highest tradition in the state by organising the address of Om Birla to both members of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council.
Congress leader DK Shivakumar mentioned that his party will not attend the address as there is no provision for anyone other than the President or the Governor to address the state’s legislators. Shivakumar added that it was planned without even consulting the Opposition. "If they want to have, they can organise the address at the Banquet Hall in Vidhana Soudha. But, the speaker had refused it. The ruling BJP has not taken us into confidence. The Legislative Assembly can't be used for political activity," Shivakumar explained.
"The subject of the joint session speech is 'Democracy- Safeguarding parliamentary values', which shows that the parliamentary and democratic values have gone down and are not in a good shape. Who is responsible for the development is the question which needs to be addressed. So, the Congress party and leaders of both the Houses have decided to boycott the address by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha," Shivakumar said.
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