Leader of Opposition (LoP) Atishi sat on a dharna outside the Delhi Assembly premises on Thursday, alleging the highhandedness of Speaker Vijender Gupta, who suspended 21 Opposition MLAs from the House.

“This is happening for the first time in the history of the country that elected representatives are being denied entry to a legislature,” Atishi told IANS.

“We are not staging a sit-in but have been forced to squat here as the security staff has refused to allow us entry into the premises,” she said.

The AAP MLA from Kalkaji said that the security staff could not provide any document when the suspended MLAs demanded a copy of the Speaker’s order banning their entry into the premises.

Speaker Vijender Gupta on Tuesday had initially suspended the AAP MLAs for three sittings, but on Thursday, the Assembly secretariat indicated that the suspension had been extended for the entire session and is likely to continue till March 3.

“After all, why is the ruling BJP so afraid of the name of Baba Saheb Ambedkar,” she said, recalling Tuesday’s House proceedings when the AAP MLAs were suspended by the Speaker for complaining about the alleged removal of Ambedkar and Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s photo from the office of Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.

The BJP dismissed AAP’s allegations of any rule violation in the Assembly.

Referring to the suspension of 21 AAP legislators, Delhi Minister Parvesh Verma said, “It is just the beginning. Many firsts are going to take place in the new Assembly because they did nothing constructive in the past 10 years.”

“The misbehaviour by AAP MLAs during the address to the House by L-G V. K. Saxena is a blot on parliamentary practices,” he said.

“The rule book and convention demand that whether it is the President’s address in the Parliament or the L-G’s address in the Delhi Assembly, and that is why AAP MLAs have been penalised for their grave offence,” he said.

BJP MLA Kailash Gahlot said that the AAP MLAs have no face to complain about the suspension.

“In the previous Assembly, BJP MLA O. P. Sharma was suspended for the entire session,” he said, asking why the AAP MLAs were complaining about their suspension.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)