Tahir Bhat
Jammu
Former Chief Minister and leader of the Opposition Omar Abdullah on Friday forced Deputy Speaker Assembly Nazir Gurezi to withdraw his ruling over ban on the use of mobiles during the Assembly proceedings.
The ruling of the Deputy Speaker caught the attention of Omar Abdullah when Deputy Speaker Nazir Gurezi ordered the ban on journalists to carry mobiles.
“Don’t use the mobile phones otherwise I won’t allow you with phones in the house,” Gurezi said addressing press gallery.
A minute later, most probably after “protest-messages” from journalists, Rana stood up and told the house time had changed for media. On this, Omar took the opportunity and asked Rana to sit and instead spoke himself.
Immediately after the Deputy Speaker ordered the ban on mobiles for journalists, Omar Abdullah raised the point of order and told the Deputy Speaker that these are not the times when newspaper offices would wait for hours together for getting the reports about the proceedings of the house and mobiles are the most convenient instruments of communication and bar on journalists to use mobile phones for reporting the assembly proceedings is tantamount to denying them an opportunity to carry out their professional duties.
The Deputy Speaker immediately withdrew his ruling and told Omar Abdullah that some of the journalists were talking over mobile phones which disturbed some of the MLAs present in the House. Omar Abdullah’s intervention was responded with thumping of desks by the media persons from the press gallery for about three minutes.
