Punjab Assembly will turn into a political battleground, come Wednesday with the opposition gearing up to take the Government head on over its performance during 100 days of power and fulfilment of promises the party made before making it to the treasury benches.
From sand mining to debt waiver, the opposition is ready to fire one salvo after another during the maiden budget session of the Congress Government in Punjab, after forming Government in March.
Even as the sandstorm is set to blow the ruling party with its Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh facing allegations of impropriety, the SAD-BJP combine and the main opposition - the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) - are all set to target with its failure to fulfil its pre-poll promises including the much-talked about debt waiver.
As a counter strategy, the Congress party is armed with a “white paper” on State finances to hit the erstwhile SAD-BJP combine. With this, the Government is expected to make some major announcements in its maiden budget, to be presented on June 20, to debase the opposition’s attack.
Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has already indicated that several important decisions with financial implications will be announced during the budget session to fulfil some key poll promises of his Government.
The session is likely to start with a boom on the very first day as the SAD has approached the Speaker Rana KP Singh against making obituary reference of State’s former top cop KPS Gill, who passed away recently.
The party, in its letter to the Speaker, pointed that Gill had indulged in numerous human rights violations during his tenure as Punjab Director General of Police (DGP).
Opposition parties are also prepared to corner the treasury benches on the issue of alleged scam in the recent sand mining contracts auction, seeking resignation of cabinet minister Rana Gurjit Singh.
SAD-BJP gears up to steal show from main opposition AAP
Pushed to the background by the nascent AAP, the SAD-BJP combine is gearing up to steal the show from the main opposition party.
In a warm-up exercise, the combine held state-wide dharnas against the government across all districts on a slew of issues. It was followed by a meeting with Governor on Tuesday to seek probe by national agencies into sand mining.
Besides, sticking to its panthic agenda, the party has strongly opposed the Congress party’s proposed move to include ‘super cop’ KPS Gill’s name in the obituary references, to be made on Wednesday.
SAD’s core committee has decided to approach the Speaker as well as the Chief Minister, in writing, to ensure that the House does not make obituary references to former DGP. It resolved to ask the Speaker to delete Gill’s name from the obituary references, besides requesting the Chief Minister to revise the list by omitting the former top cop’s name.
“Hundreds of Sikh youth had gone missing and had been murdered in false encounters under Gill’s leadership…Even Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had recently cited a case saying that 21 Sikh youth, whom he had got surrendered using his good offices in 1991, had been eliminated by the Punjab Police,” said SAD MP Prem Singh Chandumajra.
“In the light of this as well as other evidence about Gill’s role in Punjab, it would not be appropriate to include his name in the obituary references tomorrow,” he said.
Besides, the party also passed a resolution demanding immediate implementation of a complete loan waiver for farmers and labourers in Punjab. The core committee also resolved that a delegation of party MPs would call on Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely to demand rationalisation of GST on products linked with farmers like fertilisers, pesticides, textiles, processed food and vegetable juices.
AAP fully prepared to take on Govt for its failures
AAP, in its first budget session, has also prepared to take on government for its failure to check farmers’ suicides, non-fulfilment of farm loan waiver promise, degraded education level, among other issues.
AAP will hold its legislative party meeting on Wednesday to chalk out the floor strategy.
“We shall be raising the issue of farmers’ suicides, farm debt waiver and sand mining mafia along with other pertinent issues,” said AAP MlA and the leader of Opposition HS Phoolka.
During the previous session, AAP MlAs protested for disallowing its ally, lok Insaaf Party (lIP), members to sit along with them, or allot seats with them.
Opposition parties prepared with their bills
With the State Government all-ready with a series of important bills to be tabled in the budget session, many of the opposition MlAs are also prepared with private member bills.
While AAP MlA from Sunam Aman Arora is ready with a private bill seeking local area development (lAD) fund for state MlAs, BJP MlA from Phagwara Som Parkash has proposed a private bill to curb and eradicate superstitious acts.
Som Parkash has sent a Private Member Bill to the Speaker titled “The Punjab Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman, Evil Practices and Black Magic Bill, 2017” aimed at prevention and eradication of exploitation under the pretext of expelling the ghost, assaulting the persons with chain, beating by stick, etc.
“Some people cause pain by way of touching heated objects to the human body and forcing persons to perform sexual acts, and also other inhuman acts…Some dhongi babas also claim display of so-called miracles to deceive, defraud and terrorise people by provocation of so called miracles…Such acts should be curbed in the modern scientific age, and an Act should be passed to curtail such inhuman activities and make a provision of punishment to such exploiters,” he said while adding that a similar Act has already been passed by the Maharashtra Government and Karnataka Government is also actively considering it.
A bureaucrat-turned-politician, Som Parkash maintained that such Bills should not be rejected on technical grounds as they are in the larger interest of the society.