A bureaucrat-turned-politician and three-time Congress MlA Ajaib Singh Bhatti was unanimously elected Deputy Speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha on Friday, amid ruckus by the SAD MlAs.
Senior Congress leaders, including Parliamentary Affairs Minister Brahm Mohindra, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, escorted Bhatti to the Deputy Speaker’s seat, along with the leader of Opposition’s seat.
Amidst sloganeering by the Akali MlAs demanding farm loan waiver, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh congratulated his party MlA from Malaut for his elevation as Deputy Speaker.
Felicitating Bhatti on his installation as the Deputy Speaker, the Chief Minister said that Bhatti’s long administrative and political experience would further enhance the glory of this august chair.
“Politics is in Bhatti’s blood, as he inherited it from his father late Arjan Singh, who contested Assembly election from the erstwhile combined constituency Nihal Singh Wala in 1957...Known for his simple mannerisms and straightforwardness, Bhatti is a doer and believed in action when it came to working for his
people, especially from the weaker sections of the society,” he said.
Sixty-five-year-old Bhatti had won the Assembly elections from Bhucho in Bathinda in 2007 and 2012.
As a former PCS officer, Bhatti had served as Additional Deputy Commissioner in Muktsar and Bathinda districts, and later joined the Congress in 2007.
leader of the Opposition HS Phoolka maintained that it would have been better had the Deputy Speaker been chosen from the opposition.
“This is tradition in some States. All the same, we congratulate Bhatti,” he said.