Ramadevi row: Priyadarshi’s ‘human bomb’ remark rocks House

Bhubaneswar: The uproar over Ramadevi students' detention continued to rock the Odisha Assembly for the second successive day on Saturday with an adamant Opposition demanding an apology from the chief minister for the incident.

The House witnessed frequent adjournments during the day with BJD MLA Priyadarshi Mishra’s 'human bomb' remark providing fresh ammunition to the Opposition already up in arms over the incident.

The statement drew a sharp reaction with Speaker, who adjourned the House till 4 pm, seeking a reply from the treasury bench in afternoon session.

Soon after the House reassembled, BJP and Congress members raised the issue again and came down heavily on MLA Priyadarshi Mishra.

Cornered by the Opposition parties, the Bhubaneswar (North) legislator finally expressed regret for his remark while Parliamentary Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh replied on the controversial matter in the afternoon session.

"No students were kept in confinement. The media reports are not based on fact. The students were allowed to go to the meeting venue through gate no 1 while some of them tried to enter the campus through a prohibited route," Arukh informed the Assembly.

Notably, Mishra, while defending the confinement of some students, had said in the morning that in view of assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a woman human bomb in 1991, security for the VVIPs had been tightened.

“Considering it, there was nothing wrong in tightening the security of the chief minister during his visit to the Rama Devi University on Thursday”, Mishra said.

Criticizing Mishra’s statement, Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati said terming students as ‘human bomb’ was highly deplorable. “We will ask the chief minister to beg apology in the House for this irresponsible and atrocious statement of his party member failing which we will stall the House proceedings,” Bahinipati said.

BJP member Pradip Purohit said not only was the statement of Mishra grossly unfortunate, it was also highly deplorable.

“It is sad that being an MLA of Bhubaneswar, Mishra has compared the Ramadevi students with human bombs. While the BJD government claims that it has been formulating several programmes for the uplift of women, the attitude and behaviour of the ruling party towards them is unacceptable”, Purohit pointed out