From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Mar 26: For a change, proceedings in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Thursday lacked all the fire-power and heat consequent to the World Cup semi-final cricket match at Sydney involving team India and Australia, which the men in blue finally lost heavily and were knocked out of the tournament.

With the cricket match relays being telecast in the lobby of the assembly, a good number of ruling and opposition MLAs were found glued to TV sets in the lounges of the Legislative Assembly.

Consequently, there were no fire-works, heated and acrimonious debate or walk-outs and any other attempts to stage dharna in the house even as the discussion on the budget for the year 2015-16 was carried out listlessly.

During the debate on the State budget, most of the MLAs were found loitering in the ruling and opposition’s longue and spending time watching the World Cup semi-final match with snacks.

Craze for cricket was such that JD(S) leader and former Minister H D Revanna was found watching the match at the party office in the secretariat.

A few legislators bunked the session completely after signing the attendance register and the assembly staff and marshals were to found frequently running to the media centre to update the score.

The telecast of assembly proceedings were switched off in the lounges to enable legislators to watch the match.

Legislators like Sunil Kumar, C T Ravi, Appachu Ranjan, D N Jeevaraj, Visvesvara Hegde Kageri, Umesh Katti (all BJP), A Manju, N A Harris, Priya Krishna, B A Mohiuddin Bava, (Congress) S BheemaNaik of JD(S) spent most of the time in the morning session watching the match.

Irked by the absence of Ministers, Congress chief whip P M Ashok, P Rajeev (independent) and Laxman Savadi (BJP) suggested to the Speaker KagoduThimmappa to slap a fine on ministers, who abstained from the session.

The members also urged the Speaker to direct ministers mark their attendance twice in a day (morning and evening) to ensure their participation in the budget debate.