The live broadcast of proceedings in the Indian parliament was suddenly halted on Tuesday shortly before lawmakers voted to pass a controversial bill creating the country's 29th state. Days after the parliament was adjourned when one lawmaker opposed to the creation of Telangana state squirted pepper spray, there was fresh uproar when the live feed was cut shortly before the crunch vote.
While there was no official explanation for the blackout, the NDTV news channel said the decision was made by Speaker Meira Kumar who feared a repeat of last Thursday's chaos, which was widely described as a disgrace to democracy. Telangana is being carved out of the existing southern state of Andhra Pradesh, a move analysts say is designed to increase the ruling Congress party's support in deprived coastal areas in an upcoming election.
Its creation has been fiercely opposed by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Reddy, who is widely expected to quit Congress and form his own faction as a result of the vote. Jaganmohan Reddy, a local lawmaker who also opposes the division and whose father is a former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, described it as "black day in India's history". "While the introduction of this bill itself was done undemocratically... the way the bill has been passed has killed democracy in broad daylight," Jaganmohan Reddy told reporters about the TV blackout.
A leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party said she opposed Congress's attempts to rush the bill through parliament without proper debate. "We have always supported the bill. But we oppose the game the Congress played to pass it," Sushma Swaraj, opposition leader in the lower house, told reporters. Indian television said it was the first time the live feed had been cut since parliamentary proceedings started being televised two decades ago.
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