When ‘mock’ session overshadowed ‘real’ Punjab assembly session

Tuesday, 26/03/2013

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Tuesday : CHANDIGARH: The just-concluded Budget session of Punjab assembly will go down in history as unique for more reasons than one. Instead of bringing the treasury benches and the Opposition closer to each other following a change of guard in Pradesh Congress, it ended up widening the gulf between the two sides.

As a matter of fact, the aggressive posture adopted by the new PPCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa was blamed by chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and public relations minister Bikram Singh Majithia as well as a host of other leaders of the ruling SAD-BJP alliance for the confrontationist stance struck by the leader of the Congress Legislature Party Sunil Jakhar, which led to the suspension of nine Congress MLAs from the Budget session and registration of criminal cases against 15 others. The tough government stand against ‘indiscipline’ by the Congress MLAs was articulated by Sukhbir and Majithia.

The stand-off between the government and the Opposition was sparked off by the decision of Jakhar to bring the Tarn Taran police brutality victim, Harbinder Kaur, to the assembly premises even when she was denied an entry pass by Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal. Her unauthorized entry led the police to raid the CLP office to capture and evict her. This, in turn, set off a chain of events which led to the Congress to stage a mock parallel assembly session.

Senior Congress leader Jagmohan Singh Kang acted as the ‘Speaker’, while another MLA Ajit Inder Singh Mofar posed as the marshal. On most of the days, the mock assembly session managed to overshadow ‘the real assembly’ session, which in the absence of any Opposition went about its business in a listless fashion. Badal senior and parliamentary affairs minister Madan Mohan Mittal went on record on more than one occasion to say that they wanted the Congress MLAs to come back to the House and participate in the debate on the Governor’s address, Budget and other legislative business. But at the same time, they wanted the Congress to apologize for its unruly behavior inside and outside the House, for which neither Jakhar nor any of his MLAs was ready.

While the Badal government targeted Jakhar for his failure to control his flock of MLAs leading to ugly scenes in the House, there were murmurs of discontent against Jakhar in the Congress also for his action in bringing Harbinder Kaur into the assembly premises and allowing the situation to get out of hand thus depriving them of the chance to put the government on the mat on the law and order situation in the state. But Jakhar got a pat on the back not only from Bajwa but also from Captain Amarinder Singh as well as Ambika Soni, who had come to Chandigarh to take part in Bajwa’s coronation ceremony. The session was also marked by the complete absence of Captain Amarinder Singh.