New Delhi:
An unprecedented blackout of live telecast during a vote in Parliament on the controversial bill to create Telangana by dividing Andhra Pradesh has been blamed on a cable fault.
The audio feed of the Telangana bill discussion and passing in the Lok Sabha has been uploaded on its official TV site.
The BJP and some other parties had alleged that the 90-minute blackout was deliberate. "It was not a technical but a tactical glitch," said Sushma Swaraj, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
The Lok Sabha secretariat, however, said the live telecast was cut off due to a failure to receive signals from nine automatic cameras in the Lok Sabha. The fault was fixed after a video cable was replaced at 1 am last night, officials said.
Moments after the Lok Sabha reconvened at 3 pm yesterday to take up the Telangana bill for passing, the live telecast stopped. As a result, the nation could not watch as the house took up the bill clause by clause and passed it by voice vote, with the BJP supporting the government in passing it.
Lok Sabha TV, which telecasts proceedings live, displayed 'House Adjourned' on its screen even though proceedings were on. The display soon changed to 'Live from Lok Sabha shortly,' but the telecast never resumed even as the Telangana bill was passed.
Facing a political outcry, the Lok Sabha secretariat ordered a probe into the blackout. They said they found that signals from the cameras in the house were not received, because of which the video feed had stopped and only the audio feed was being transmitted.
The blackout, never seen since 1996 when live telecast of Parliament proceedings began, was called the "murder of democracy" by angry lawmakers.