NEW DELHI: The Odisha assembly witnessed chaotic scenes on Tuesday after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition party Congress leaders engaged in a scuffle. The lawmakers were seen pushing each other, standing on the reporters’ table and raising slogans during a protest by the opposition — Congress and BJD.
Tensions flared in the House during question hour when senior BJP lawmaker Jaynarayan Mishra rushed toward Congress MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati, who was standing in front of urban development minister KC Mohapatra as he responded to a question.

The Congress leader accused Mishra of initiating a physical scuffle and said that he “pushed” him as Bahinipati was “requesting” the minister to stop speaking amid chaos.
“Mishra caught hold of my shirt collar and pushed me. I was requesting minister Mohapatra to stop giving a reply when the House was not in order. I requested him with folding hands. But, Mishra suddenly came up to me and caught hold of my collar,” Bahinipati told reporters.
Earlier, Bahinipati had attempted to climb the Speaker’s podium to disrupt proceedings but was unsuccessful. Despite the chaos, Speaker Surama Padhy allowed Question Hour to continue.
Bahinipati has been suspended from the assembly for indiscipline for seven days.
BJP MLA Tankadhar Tripathy accused the opposition of trying to “break the mic” while the minister was speaking. “Opposition is part of a democracy. Limits should be drawn in the House. While the Urban Development Minister was replying to a question in the House, the BJD and the Congress MLAs tried to break the mic and took away the files from his table. This is not acceptable in a democracy,” he said.
“We had never seen members of opposition and treasury bench clashing in the well of the House. This had never happened in the history of Odisha assembly,” BJD member Arun Kumar Sahoo said.
Congress MLA Sofia Firdous accused BJP leaders of heckling a senior Congress member and said, “For the first time, women members were panicked by the situation in the assembly today. The Speaker should not have allowed the proceedings when the House was in turmoil. Our senior leader was heckled by the BJP members.”
The House was adjourned four times during the day.
BJD members, though present in the well, refrained from joining the scuffle. Meanwhile, the opposition BJD and Congress members were protesting over separate issues. As the chief minister remained absent from the House for two consecutive days, BJD members, wearing black badges, conducted a symbolic “search” for him on the assembly premises using a lantern. They also staged a sit-in outside the CM’s chamber.