Wednesday, March 22 2006 12:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Hyderabad: The furore over controversial Sripadasagar irrigation project continued to rock Andhra Pradesh Assembly with TDP legislators stalling the proceedings today prompting Speaker K R Suresh Reddy to suspend opposition members,including their leader Chandrababu Naidu,for two days.

A day after the Congress government agreed to place the files relating to finalisation of project tenders at the Irrigation Minister's chambers, the Opposition remained firm in its demand for placing them before the Speaker.

The Opposition has alleged irregularities in the tendering process for Sripadasagar project in Karimnagar district in Telangana region, designed to irrigate two lakh acres.

At the crux of the opposition argument is that cost estimate was deliberately inflated by Rs 400 crore to benefit private contractors.

Capping the 16-day stormy debate on the issue, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy yesterday offered to place the files at Major Irrigation Minister P Lakshmaiah's chambers to enable opposition parties to examine them.

As soon as the House assembled for the day today, the TDP members stormed the podium insisting on tabling the files before the Speaker, a demand firmly rejected by the government.

Noisy scenes prevailed in the House with the Opposition members refusing to leave the podium despite repeated appeals from the Chair.

Amid the din, the Legislative Affairs Minister K Rosaiah moved a resolution suspending 28 TDP members present in the House, including its floor leader N Chandrababu Naidu, for two days.

After the resolution was read out, the Speaker announced the suspension of Opposition members and asked them to leave the House.

Some of the slogan-shouting TDP members were bodily lifted and whisked away by the Assembly marshals. Later, the opposition members held a sit-in near the Speaker's chambers to protest what they called 'undemocratic attitude' of the Government.

Supporting their demand for placing the files before the Speaker, the CPI(M), CPI, BJP, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) members staged a walkout. Meanwhile, the chief whip Kiran Kumar Reddy said the ruling party had moved a privilege notice against TDP floor leader and former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu for 'furnishing wrong figures pertaining to project estimates and misleading the House.'

The Chief Whip and the Legislative Affairs Minister took serious objection to Naidu's outbursts yesterday against the Speaker.

The TDP, which had earlier submitted to the Speaker a sealed cover containing what it claimed the original documents of the tendering process, found itself in a tight spot when Naidu admitted yesterday that his party had 'deliberately furnished wrong figures as part of a strategy to extract correct information from the government.'

This gave the much-needed ammunition for the treasury benches to attack the TDP and accuse it of trying to scuttling irrigation projects by raising baseless charges.

The Left Parties and TRS members said the government could initiate criminal proceedings against TDP if the documents submitted by it were proved to be forged or fabricated.

The TDP, which was the first to raise the issue through Question Hour early this month, has been alleging that the cost of Sripadasagar project was 'deliberately inflated' from Rs 1,344 crore to Rs 1,725 crore to benefit private contractors.

The government has, however, denied the charge and asserted that the discrepancy had arisen due to an error committed by the local superintendent engineer while uploading Internal Benchmarking value on the internet.