Convened after almost six months, the first day of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha’s monsoon session lasted for just about 14 minutes. The Day 1 of the session saw tributes being paid to the three-year-old borewell victim Fatehveer Singh, along with Delhi’s former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, and others.
The brevity of the first sitting of the monsoon session, however triggered an out-of-an-ordinary reaction by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Aman Arora who refused to accept the travel and dearness allowance (TA/DA) for the day citing “no work-no allowance”.
At the same time, the demand to extend the session failed to find any favour during the meeting of Business Advisory Committee (BAC), which has the representatives of all political parties.
Apart from the Speaker Rana Kanwar Pal Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Brahm Mohindra, SAD MLA Parminder Singh Dhindsa, the Leader of Opposition and AAP MLA Harpal Singh Cheema attended the meeting.
The opposition leaders demanded extension in the monsoon session to discuss number of burning issues concerning the State and its people, but the Speaker refused to accept the same. The session, which started on Friday, will now meet on Monday after two holidays — Saturday and Sunday.
As just the obituary references were made on the first day, the House will now have just two operative days — Monday and Tuesday.
Unhappy, AAP leader Cheema said that the party’s delegation had earlier met the Speaker seeking an extended 20-day-long session considering the quantum of core issues of concern. “The same demand was also raised at the Business Advisory Committee meeting also, but no use,” he said.
Cheema said that AAP wanted detailed discussion on the issues like alarming water crisis, river waters share, flood, pollution, agrarian crisis, farmers’ loans, unabated suicides by farmers and farm labourers, unemployment, drugs, AIDS-HIV, land mafia, sand mafia, employees’ demand, politicization of police and administration, gangs active in prisons, stray cattle, stray dogs, dalits’ five-marla plots, MGNREGA scheme, SC scholarships and so on.
SAD MLA Dhindsa, after the meeting, said that the Government did not want their real face to be exposed. “The law and order situation is bad in the state, murders are taking place in state’s jails, the government is not serious on the water issue. SAD want to debate on all these issue, but our demand was not accepted,” he said.
FATEHVEER, DIXIT, EX-MP, EX-MLAs, FREEDOM FIGHTERS REMEMBERED
Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Friday remembered Fatehveer, a three-year-old boy who had died after falling in a borewell after six-day-long rescue operations.
Besides, the House also paid tributes to Delhi’s former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, who passed away on July 20, and former Rajya Sabha Member Virender Kataria, who was member of Rajya Sabha from 1992 to 1998.
The House also remembered Baba Labh Singh, popularly known as Pulan Wale Baba Ji, from Sri Anandpur Sahib.
The names of Fatehveer and Baba Labh Singh were included in the customary list of obituary references after SAD’s Lehra Gaga MLA Parminder Singh Dhindsa, AAP’s Sunam MLA Aman Arora, Lok Insaaf Party’s (LIP) MLA from Atam Nagar Simarjit Singh Bains proposed to include Fatehveer’s name.
The name of Baba Labh Singh, who had got nine bridges constructed over the river Sutlej through Kar Sewa, was added on the proposal of Speaker to which House unanimously agreed.
AAP MLA from Kotkapura Kultar Singh Sandhwan demanded that the names of 90 farmers, who had committed suicide between the Budget Session held in February and the ongoing Monsoon session, to be included.
Leader of Opposition and AAP MLA Harpal Singh Cheema proposed to include the name of an unemployed Jagseer Singh, who had committed suicide after failing to get a job despite all requisite qualifications. However, the Speaker rejected their demands.
Earlier, the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who is also the Leader of the House, led the Vidhan Sabha in paying tributes to eminent personalities who had passed since the last session of the Assembly.
Tributes were also paid to other eminent personalities, including former Bathinda MP (in 1967) Kikkar Singh, former Minister and Shutrana MLA (1992) Hamir Singh Ghagga, former Chief parliamentary Secretary and MLA Chaudhary Nand Lal, Punjab Legislative Council’s former MLA Sneh Lata, besides former MLAs Comrade Balwant Singh, Paramjit Singh and Karnail Singh Dod.
Freedom Fighters — Gurmej Singh, Kulwant Singh, Isher Singh, Ujagar Singh, Jangir Singh, Santa Singh and SGPC member Jathedar Lakhvir Singh were also remembered by the House.
Speaker Rana KP Singh proposed that tributes be paid to all those members who had passed away since the previous session. After the obituary references to the eminent personalities, he passed a resolution for conveying the condolences of the House to their respective families. A two-minute silence was observed as a mark of respect to the departed souls.
ARORA SURRENDERS TA/DA, PERKS FOR MONSOON SESSION’S FIRST DAY
Setting an example for other lawmakers, AAP MLA Aman Arora on Friday surrendered his TA/DA and other perks for the first day of the monsoon session when “no actual work had taken place”.
Arora, in a letter he personally submitted to the Speaker Rana KP Singh immediately after the Session, contended that his “conscious does not allow him to take TA/DA and other perks for the day when Session was adjourned within 14 minutes after paying obituaries to the departed souls, and no issue concerning the State or its public was discussed”.
Backed by data since 1948, Arora reminded the Speaker of the rich precedence of the Punjab Assembly between 1948 to 1979, where conduct of usual business used to be a norm on the days of obituaries, which were gradually given up by successive regimes. He urged the Speaker to bring back those rich traditions and precedences back to the iconic Punjab Assembly.
Arora pointed that the Chief Minister had recently, while justifying shorter Assembly Sessions, stated that it cost the state exchequer a whopping Rs 70 lakhs a day to conduct the assembly proceedings.
“Then how could the CM, his Government and the Speaker could be so insensitive that they let Rs 70 lakhs of public money go down the drain just for 14 minutes of obituaries, whereas there should have been a sitting, may be after a short interval after that, so as to discuss public issues,” he added.
GOVT RUNNING AWAY FROM CORE PUBLIC-CENTRIC ISSUES: AAP
AAP’s senior leader and the Leader of Opposition Harpal Singh Cheema said that the Capt Amarinder Singh government in the state had miserably failed to fulfil even a single poll promise it peddled among the people during 2017 Assembly elections, and “it is now running away from the core issues of concern, which is conspicuous during the current session”.
The issues were too many to be transacted during the limited session sittings, said Cheema.
At the same time, Cheema welcomed the decision of paying tributes to Fatehvir Singh and Sant Baba Labh Singh Ka Seva Wale, in the House, but slammed the government for denigrating the honour of countless unemployed youth, ‘dalits’ and physically-challenged in the State by not paying tribute to Jagsir Singh, who recently committed suicide due to unemployment.
“Jagsir Singh, who possessed all essential qualifications, including UGC-NET, TET, et al had to end his life, as he was fed up of being unemployed,” he said.
AAP MLA MEETS CAPT DEMANDS COMPENSATION FOR CROPS DAMAGED BY FLOODS
AAP MLA from Bathinda (Rural) Rupinder Kaur Ruby on Friday called upon the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh apprising him of the heavy losses due to floods damaging crops worth lakhs of rupees in the Bathinda area due to inadequate measures put in place by the government.
Ruby, in a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister, said that the heavy flood waters had wreaked havoc in the Bathinda while demanding adequate compensation to the affected farmers. It should be disbursed in a time frame, she said.
DHINDSA ELECTED SAD LEGISLATURE PARTY LEADER
Punjab’s former Finance Minister and SAD MLA Parminder Singh Dhindsa will be the new leader of the party’s legislature wing, while electing Adampur MLA Pawan Kumar Tinu as the Deputy Leader of the party in the House.
The party has appointed two-time MLA NK Sharma as the Chief Whip of SAD Legislature Party in Punjab Vidhan Sabha.
Making these announcements, SAD party spokesperson Harcharan Singh Bains said that the appointments were made unanimously during a meeting of the Legislature Party on Friday afternoon.
Bains said that the SAD president Sukhbir Badal had earlier asked the party legislators to elect a new leader as the post had fallen vacant following his election to the Parliament as a Member of the Lok Sabha.