The first session of the newly constituted Haryana Assembly after the victory of BJP in the Assembly polls, began on Monday amidst much fanfare.
Kanwar Pal Gujjar, BJP MlA from Jagadhari Assembly Constituency was unanimously elected as Speaker of the 13th Assembly on the first day. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ram Bilas Sharma proposed the name of Gujjar which was seconded by Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu.
Earlier, the Pro-tem Speaker Raghubir Singh Kadian administered the oath to the newly elected legislators. All political parties extended their support to carry out business of the house smoothly which was oath taking of the newly elected MlAs.
After election of the Speaker, Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar, in his address said that Gujjar is an experienced MlA. Earlier, he has was elected a Member of the house in 2000 and this was his second term. “Most of the members of this legislative Assembly have been elected first time, including me. They should get equal opportunity to speak. Besides, this house for the first time will see 13 women MlAs out of 90. I feel everyone should get enough time to present the issues related to their constituencies for thorough discussions”, said Khattar.
Khattar also raised the issue for more sittings of the House every year. “Reviews of the number of sittings of the Vidhan Sabha sessions conducted reveal that Haryana has registered comparatively less number from the year 2000 to 2010 which is a matter of concern as the average comes to 10 sittings per year. Contrary to this, there are States where the number of sittings ranges from 31 to 40 per year,” he said.
The chief minister said that besides the Speaker, it was the collective responsibility of all the elected members to maintain the dignity of the House. Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ram Bilas Sharma also congratulated Gujjar on being unanimously elected as the Speaker of Haryana Vidhan Sabha. He said that the chief minister has set an example by urging the Speaker to increase the sittings of the House.
leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala agreed with the proposal to have more sessions of the Assembly. “I agree with the CM on this. If we go in details since the inception of Haryana, the average of sittings had been reducing gradually”, said Chautala. He said opportunity should be given to the new MlAs by increasing the numbers of sittings.
Congress MlA Karan Dalal, raised ‘inter-state’ issues with Punjab especially related to river water distribution, separate High Court and Haryana’s ‘right on Chandigarh’. But none of the MlAs supported him. Pawan Saini of BJP said, “Congress remained in power for ten years in Haryana and asked what it had done during its rule and why didn’t it discuss the issues thoroughly.
In all 89 MlAs took oath of secrecy and the lone absentee was Congress MlA from Kaithal, Randeep Surjewala. The new Speaker thanked all the MlAs in the house for support and said, the date for election of Deputy Speaker would be announced after some time. On Tuesday, Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki will address the Assembly.
Newly elected MlAs took oath in English, Punjabi and Sanskrit languages
Apart from the Hindi, several newly elected MlAs also took oath of secrecy in English, Punjabi and Sanskrit. Four MlAs including Prem lata, Kuldeep Bishnoi, Dinesh Kaushik and Abhay Singh Yadav took oath in English. Those who took oath in Punjabi included Ravinder Baliala, Bakhshish Singh Virk, Jaswinder Singh Sandhu and Balkaur Singh. Captain Abhimanyu, Kamal Gupta, Pawan Saini, Parkash Yadav and Randhir Singh Kapdiwas took oath of secrecy in Sanskrit. The remaining MlAs took oath in Hindi. The oath was administered district wise to the newly elected MlAs hence former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had to wait for one and half hour to take oath.
Confusion on seats
Most of the first time elected BJP MlAs faced difficulty while finding their seats in the House, as they were not ear-marked. Parliamentary affairs minister Ram Bilas Sharma was sitting besides Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar. Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu shared his seat with Agriculture Minister OP Dhankhad. However, Health minister Anil Vij didn’t find a place to sit and ultimately he went to the last row of the treasury benches.