Speaker flays MLAs for raising issues outside House
Assembly Speaker Ch. Ayyanna Patrudu on Friday said it was unfortunate that some elected representatives were attempting to mislead the public by taking issues to the streets instead of raising them in the Assembly.
If legislators were genuinely concerned about resolving public grievances, they should voice those concerns on the floor of the House, he said.
The Speaker was speaking as the chief guest at a play on Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao, organised by the Writers Academy as part of the writer’s birth centenary celebrations at Kalabharathi here on Friday evening.
Mr. Ayyanna Patrudu questioned the rationale behind paying salaries to MLAs who fail to attend Assembly sessions when government employees and workers face salary cuts for remaining absent from duty. He said the “no work, no wage” principle should also apply to legislators.
He remarked that this could possibly be his last phase in politics, as he was already in his seventies. He observed that people with a soft nature like himself were ill-suited to present-day politics.
The Speaker also spoke about the richness of the Telugu language and highlighted the literary and public contributions of Mandali Venkata Krishna Rao.
Among those who attended the programme were MLA Mandali Venkata Buddha Prasad, Writers Academy chairman V.V. Ramana Murthy, academy member Meda Mastan Reddy, former Acharya Nagarjuna University Vice-Chancellor V. Bala Mohan Das and chairman of Pydah Educational Institutions Pydah Krishna Prasad.