The controversy over the spat between the Congress legislator and the State Government is being blown out of proportion with each passing day.
Even as the party MlAs are gearing up for their Congress legislative Party (ClP) meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, the party’s senior leaders and MlAs are reminding Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to maintain MlAs’ dignity, and abide protocol.
The latest salvo was fired by former Union Minister and Patiala (Urban) MlA Preneet Kaur and other sitting and former Congress MlAs on Monday asking the Chief Minister to respect the dignity of an MlA who is the elected representative of people and maintain the standard protocol.
Going into background of the matter, a woman officer, Fatehgarh Sahib Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Pooja Syal Grewal had complained to her Deputy Commissioner alleging that local Congress MlA Kuljit Singh Nagra had misbehaved with her and used abusive language during a meeting over civic issues in Sirhind town.
Nagra, on his part, had alleged that the SDM misbehaved with him in front of other people and undermined his position as a public representative.
He claimed that when he went to meet the SDM over some civic problems being faced by the people, she reprimanded them from taking the issues to the legislator and told them to get in touch with her directly, that angered the Congress legislator who objected to the statement.
Chief Minister had on Thursday ordered a probe asking Patiala Divisional Commissioner Ajit Singh Pannu to conduct the inquiry into the incident.
Referring to the issue of “breach of protocol by an SDM” while dealing with area MlA, Preneet along with party leaders MlA Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, MlA Hardayal Singh Kambhoj, ex-MlA Madan lal Jalalpur and ex-MlA Nirmal Singh Shatrana in a joint statement, said that the Chief Minister must handle the issue by rising above party politics.
“By assigning the inquiry to a Commissioner who is much junior in protocol to an MlA, Badal has not conveyed any right signals,” they said.
The Congress leader maintained that the dignity of the elected representatives “must be maintained and safeguarded at all costs...You must not do anything that will amount to subjugating the authority of an elected legislator to an official”.
It should be other way round that the official bureaucracy should be accountable to the elected representatives in the real democratic spirit, they argued.
Preneet said: “Badal and some of the Akali leaders are unnecessarily trying to politicize the issue...The issue is not to which party the MlA belongs, but maintaining, safeguarding and respecting the institution of an elected representative as otherwise democracy will lose its purpose.”
Meanwhile, ClP leader Sunil Jakhar has also convened a meeting on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the issue and length and then take it up with the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal.