Bengaluru, 17 March

Legislative Council Chairman Basavaraj Horatti on Tuesday briefly adjourned the House, expressing displeasure over the absence of Ministers and ruling party members post lunch break.

When the council resumed after lunch, Leader of Opposition Chalavadi Narayanaswamy pointed toward the empty Treasury benches and suggested that ruling party members seemed to have "boycotted" the proceedings.

Only Minister of School Education and Literacy Madhu Bangarappa and Chief Whip Saleem Ahmed were in attendance.

The Chairman asked, "Ministers are not here; what should I do?"

Objecting to empty Treasury benches, Opposition Chief Whip N Ravikumar said, "If we have to speak on any issues, who should we tell? Who is there among Ministers? Where is the government?"

Following this, Horatti adjourned the House for 10 minutes.

When the House resumed, a couple of Ministers -- Ramalinga Reddy and Santosh Lad arrived, but the Treasury benches by and large remained sparse.

The Chairman asked Ahmed, “What other work is there during the session? If there are no members and the seats are empty, how can the House run?"

Ahmed said they are “coming”, but this further angered Horatti.

Congress MLC Ramesh Babu said there was some delay in the return of his party colleagues, who had gone for lunch. As a couple of Ministers and ruling party MLCs started trickling in, the Chairman called BJP MLC A H Vishwanth to speak on the Budget.