Jakhar slams speaker for not extending session
Wednesday, 16/07/2014
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CHANDIGARH: Leader of the Opposition in Punjab assembly Sunil Jakhar on Tuesday criticised Vidhan Sabha speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal and the SAD-BJP government for their refusal to extend the ongoing budget session for “important discussions on the various burning issues” in the state.
The ongoing budget session, which commenced on Tuesday, would conclude on July 22. With the first day of the session being devoted to obituaries and Saturday and Sunday being holidays, the session would practically be held only for four days.
Addressing a press conference here, Jakhar said he was disappointed by the outcome of the business advisory committee’s meeting this afternoon.
“Though I tried to convince the speaker, deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa and parliamentary affairs minister Madan Mohan Mittal, who were present in the meeting that it was extremely important to have discussion on the burning issues of Punjab but none of them agreed to extend the session,” he said.
The Congress legislature party (CLP) leader said that he, on behalf of his party, gave a list of 21 points to the speaker but all of these were outrightly rejected.
He said that after much difficulty, the speaker agreed to give only one hour more to all the MLAs in the house to discuss issues pertaining to their respective constituencies. “One hour is woefully inadequate to discuss all the issues,” he added.
Jakhar said that it appeared that the SAD-BJP government was deliberately running away from the discussion in the house on the issue of drug menace.
“Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal every day issues a statement for setting up of rehabilitation centres to treat the drug addicts, but is not ready to discuss the issue on the floor of the House. The Akali government stands completely exposed as they are only catching the drug peddlers and the addicts while the big crocodiles have been let away”, said Jakhar.
‘EXTORTION IN NAME OF CHECKING DRUGS’
Sunil Jakhar, during the press conference, also presented a case to establish that the Punjab Police has been extorting money in the guise of checking the drug abuse. He said on June 19, Talwinder Singh alias Mintu, a resident of Malout in Muktsar district, was picked up by the police from a hotel in Amritsar where he had gone to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple.
Mintu’s mother, Kuldeep Kaur, was present at Jakhar’s press conference. He said SHO Paramjit Singh, accompanied by one DSP, nabbed Mintu from the hotel and asked him to shell out some money, failing which he would be booked under the NDPS Act. The police forced him to withdraw ₹ 60,000 from an ATM machine.
He said that later the police took Mintu to the ICICI bank and forced him to sign on blank cheques. On June 23 and June 24, the police withdrew ₹ 3.5 lakh from the bank. “Mintu was beaten up and tortured whenever he tried to resist the move”, he said adding that the police later booked him for having 930 gram ‘white powder’ in his possession. Jakhar said even if Mintu had any record of a drug case, the police had no right to extort money from him.
