Tempers ran high in the Punjab State Assembly on Monday as the treasury benches and the Opposition indulged in a sharp exchange of words after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann gave a lock and key to the Speaker, urging him to lock the gate of the Vidhan Sabha from inside so that they don’t ‘run away’ from the discussion.
The Chief Minister along with AAP MLAs were embroiled in a heated altercation with the Opposition legislators as Mr. Mann before starting his speech at the Governor’s address, gave a lock-key to Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, asking that the House should be locked from the inside so that the Opposition stays in the House as the discussion is held.
Mr. Mann alleged that the Opposition was ‘running away’ from the Governor’s address as they were not able to digest the path-breaking initiatives taken by the State government. He said that the Opposition had fled from the House during the Governor’s address and hence as custodian of the House the Speaker should ensure that the Opposition does not run from the House.
Hitting out at the Congress party, Mr. Mann said that running away from the core issues is in the DNA of the Congress and the state Congress is following it. “At the time when the Budget session of the country was going on the top leader of the Congress, Rahul Gandhi was wandering in Chhattisgarh. They are the most irresponsible party in the country which is least bothered about the common man,” he said. The Chief Minister said that the Congress party is now on its knees and is daily requesting the AAP to forge an alliance with it. He said that these leaders are political deadwoods who don’t have any base amongst the people and have been completely rejected by the people.
He also attacked the Shiromani Akali Dal, accusing the “Badal” family of looting crores of rupees from the State for personal benefits during their regimes.
Congress MLAs raise slogans against the AAP government in the well of House even as the Leader of the Opposition, Congress’s Partap Singh Bajwa said that the Opposition never runs away. On the first day of the Budget session, Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit’s address to the State Assembly was disrupted by the Opposition Congress MLAs, who raised the issues of protesting farmers. Amid the uproar, the Governor had cut short his address, and after reading a few lines and told the House that the rest of it be deemed as read.
Outside the House, Mr. Bajwa said accused Mr. Mann of adopting unethical and unconstitutional behaviour on the floor of the House. He said Mr. Mann was creating unnecessary theatrics in the House instead of discussing real issues about the State. He made a mockery of the position of the CM by asking the Punjab Assembly Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan to lock the House from the inside.
“Mr. Mann must explain on what constitutional ground did he attempt to get the house locked. Was that the kind of behaviour a CM was supposed to act? He has apparently gone out of his senses. He has certainly crossed all the limits of absurdity,” Mr. Bajwa said.
