Bhubaneswar: Opposition BJD and Congress members on Thursday disrupted assembly proceedings for the third consecutive day, demanding health minister Mukesh Mahaling’s resignation on moral grounds over the SCB Medical College and Hospital fire in Cuttack on Monday that has so far claimed 12 lives.The moment the House reconvened for Question Hour at 10.30 am, opposition members trooped into the well shouting slogans and waving placards. Speaker Surama Padhy urged them to return to their seats and allow the House to function, but the protests continued.With the opposition refusing to relent, the speaker adjourned the House first till 11.30 am, then till 1 pm, and later till 4 pm — resulting in no business being conducted during the pre-lunch session washing out the question hour and the zero hour. Some protesting MLAs were even seen attempting to climb the Speaker’s podium. Opposition members alleged that junior government employees were being made scapegoats to shield the government’s “inadequacy”.Outside the assembly, opposition chief whip and BJD MLA Pramila Mallik said the health minister had “no moral right” to continue in office after innocent patients died in a government hospital. “We will continue raising our voice till he resigns,” she said.Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati referred to former health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak stepping down in 2016 after a private hospital fire killed 21 people. “The current health minister should follow the same path and quit,” he said, adding the govt is indifferent to people’s sufferings.Countering the opposition, BJP MLA Irasis Acharya said the BJD and Congress should participate in a debate instead of paralysing the House. “There is no denying that it’s a very sensitive issue. The government is taking the best possible steps to prevent such incidents in future and to act against anyone found guilty in the ongoing probes,” he said, adding the opposition should raise every issue of public interest instead to trying to stall proceedings.
