As a result, the Speaker had to invoke a special provision for the first time ever, as more than half of question hour still remained and there was nobody to ask questions.

As per Rule 42 of the Delhi Assembly Procedures and Rules, anybody present in the House, including members of the ruling party, can put up the questions that have been listed for the day. “This is the first time that the Speaker has had to invoke this special provision. In case a member, under whose name starred questions are listed, is not present in the House, then anyone else can ask the said questions. This is the first time that there was no one to ask questions in the Delhi Assembly,” Siddarth Rao, Secretary of Delhi Assembly, said.

The walk-out was staged after the Speaker turned down a request by the Opposition for suspending question hour so that the power and water crisis could be discussed. Opposition leaders were also up in arms as they were not invited for the MLA meeting convened by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, which was attended by all Congress MLAs.

“The chief minister’s office did not inform us about the timing of the meeting. In fact, I called them but we did not get a reply,” Vijay Kumar Malhotra said. BJP MLAs rushed into well of the House and eight of them were suspended for a day.

“The situation is intolerable. In Krishna Nagar in East Delhi, there have been unduly long powercuts because the discom infrastructure is not at par. South Anarkali is suffering the most, as residents there have not had electricity for almost 60 hours in the last five days. On Saturday, a transformer blew up and damaged houses, injuring people and it has yet to be repaired,” former Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan said.

The Opposition also alleged the “belated” pulling up of discoms was a drama staged by Sheila Dikshit. “Why didn’t she raise this issue earlier? When the government pulls up the discoms, why do they forget that they are 49 per cent shareholders in these firms? They have representatives on the boards of the discoms who could have raised this issue,” Jagdish Mukhi, Janakpuri MLA, said.