A Progressive Conservative MPP is accusing NDP Leader Andrea Horwath of “pushing” her while inside the Ontario Legislature, during a heated confrontation on Tuesday.

Donna Skelly claims Horwath “put her hands on” and pushed Skelly’s shoulder as she was having a discussion with a government colleague.

“Andrea Horwath crossed the floor, came up to me yelling and screaming and pushed me,” Skelly told reporters.

Skelly says while she was not physically harmed she was “stunned” by the alleged behaviour of the NDP leader, calling it “inappropriate.”

Horwath denies the incident, saying she was simply going over to “tap a colleague on the shoulder.”

“I’ve known this woman for 20 years,” Horwath told a crush of media, claiming any assertion that she pushed Skelly is untrue.

The exchange began during an Opposition Day debate, when the Official Opposition is given control of the agenda.

Horwath was advocating for a new hospital in Brampton when she was suddenly interrupted by the acting speaker, Percy Hatfield.

“Will you please sit down?” Hatfield told Skelly. “You’re blocking the camera. You know what you’re doing. And please don’t do it again.”

Skelly says she was simply helping a colleague who recently had knee surgery to his seat and in doing so “may have obstructed a view” of a legislative camera. Video broadcast during the incident showed a paper briefly being waved in front of a camera trained on Horwath.

Horwath immediately accused Skelly of “playing dirty tricks.”

“How disgraceful!” Horwath charged. “Is that what we do around here? Get into the mud in that regard? Shameful, shameful, shameful.”

What happened next was neither captured on video nor recorded in the official transcript kept by the legislature.

Energy Minister Greg Rickford, who says he was seated nearby, claims Horwath “stormed over” red-faced and made a “physical movement” to Skelly’s shoulders.

“(Horwath) tapped them a couple of times,” Rickford said and described the incident as “aggressive”

Rickford says the exchange amounts to “physical intimidation.”

Horwath agrees that she crossed the floor of the legislature to “tap” Skelly on the shoulder, but calls it a “normal situation” in which she was trying to get Skelly’s attention.

“(I was) going to have a discussion with her and she went ballistic,” Horwath commented.

Skelly fired back, calling Horwath an “angry woman” who’s in need of anger management training.

Speaker Ted Arnott will investigate whether Skelly’s parliamentary privilege was breached.