Jammu, May 19 -- The battle between Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Abdul Rahim Rather and Leader of Opposition Sunil Kumar Sharma intensified on Monday, with the latter questioning the former and asking whether the yardstick of seniority was applied only to the BJP and not to the ruling alliance, whose first-time MLAs, he said, have been appointed as heads of non-financial committees.

In a statement issued to the media, Sharma termed the Speaker's claims on the issue of appointing chairpersons of House committees as smacking of an attempt to shield wrongdoing rather than to respond to the reservations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over it.

He said the Speaker's discretion to appoint heads of six non-financial House committees...