In a tearing hurry to salvage its image, the Punjab Congress, it seems, does not want to lose even a single day of the State Assembly session starting from Tuesday.
The party has not only sought extension of six-day Assembly Session, but has also urged the Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal to “think out-of-the-box”. Urging the Speaker to extend session’s duration, Congress legislative Party (ClP) leader Sunil Jakhar on Monday suggested him to continue the Session on first day after making obituaries references instead of adjourning it for the day.
“There is a need to start new traditions by doing away with the old ones for better and effective functioning of the House. We hold the House for about 10 minutes to pay obituaries, and then adjourn it for a day… Speaker has introduced some reforms, and more should be brought in,” said Jakhar, after meeting the Speaker in the Vidhan Sabha.
Jakhar said that the as per rules of business, the House should meet for 40 days, “but it does not function for more than 18 days…when would the MlAs raise their issues… we need to think out-of-the-box… we cant just brush aside things by citing traditions”. He described the short duration of the session as a “futile exercise just to complete constitutional obligation”.
Jakhar asked Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to tell his Ministers “to come prepared” to face the volley of questions by the Congress legislators. “If they don’t want to extend time, don't do it… we would raise our issues for the little time they would give us… And, I want to ask the Chief Minister to tell his Ministers to come prepared to face questions,” said Jakhar. Jakhar, also the leader of Opposition, has handed over the list of 21 issues to the Speaker demanding one-hour debate on each of them.
The issues include: power shortage, increasing drugs menace, farmers’ suicide, increasing prices of sand-gravel, drought, pollution in rivers, charging of fees from SC students, NREGA scam, closing down of industries, unemployment, employees’ demands, cities facing hell-like conditions, details of Rs 1,200 crore meant for small towns, stray animals causing deaths, highest VAT on petrol in the state, and the grains to be distributed under the Food Security Act, misutilisation of funds given by previous UPA Government for agro-diversification, among others.
Responding, the Speaker said that possibility of holding debate on all issues could be possible if the Congress would have raised this issue a week before. “By handing over the list of issues and demanding to hold debate for each one of them just a day before the session, it’s not possible to allot time for the same,” said Atwal.
He maintained that fixing time for debates, and on what issues, besides increasing the session’s duration was on the Business Advisory Committee. “If the Committee wanted to extend the session, it can,” he added. Expressing concern over the lowering number of sessions of the House, Atwal maintained that he was too in favour of having bigger sessions.
As the Opposition Congress has collected enough ammunition to attack the SAD-BJP ruling alliance, the Budget Session is likely to be a fiery affair. To chalk out their strategies, both the ruling SAD-BJP alliance, and the opposition Congress have summoned the meetings of their respective legislative parties on Tuesday.
Punjab Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa is scheduled to present the State Budget for 2014-15 on July 16. The State Government had passed a Vote on Account till July 31 in March. As per the tentative schedule, the session is likely to end on July 22 comprising total six sittings. The session will commence with obituary references to those who died since the last session in March, and the budget presentation on July 16 will be followed by discussions on the proposals on July 18 and July 21.
Non-official business is expected to be conducted on July 17. On the last day, July 22, the discussion and voting on demands in respect of Budget Estimates and the Appropriation Bill for 2014-15 and legislative business, if any, would be taken up.