Punjab budget session: Din in house as AAP, Congress lock horns over corruption cases
Chandigarh: Din prevailed in the Punjab assembly during the second day of the ongoing budget session here on Monday with the chief minister Bhagwant Mann and the leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa getting into heated arguments over the issue of corruption.
The pandemonium gripped the House when Congress leader and LoP Bajwa, who was speaking during the discussion on the Governor’s address, referred to ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Raghav Chadha’s statement that the BJP flag should be put up on the offices of Central investigation agencies and said that likewise, the AAP should also put its flag on the office of the Punjab state vigilance bureau (VB).
Irked over it, the leader of the House and chief minister Bhagwant Mann, rose from his seat countering it and saying that whosoever was involved in corruption would not be spared. He went on to accuse Bajwa of shielding the corrupt by criticising the VB. Accusing Congress of being neck-deep in corruption, Mann said that all, whether from the ruling AAP or the Opposition, involved in looting the state would not be spared.
The chief minister also pointedly said that most of the Congress leaders sitting on opposition benches were tainted. He told Bajwa that though these leaders were sitting amongst him in these seats, they too would also have to pay for their sins very soon as action against them was inevitable.
On this Bajwa, who was also joined by all the Congress MLAs including senior member Sukhpal Khaira, took on Mann asking as to why the AAP government was not acting against its former minister Fauja Singh Srari and that such a statement of Mann showed his bias against Congress MLAs even before any probe.
Even as the heated arguments ensued, the AAP legislators who protested Bajwa and Khaira’s statements also came to the well of the House.
Backed by Congress members, Bajwa, however, held that even though the Opposition legislators wanted to cooperate, they were threatened on the floor of the House. He pointedly said that the way the chief minister addressed the Opposition members, was not in good taste. He also sought Mann’s apology for what he had said against the Congress MLAs, following which all the Opposition members also went into the well of the House and later staged a walkout. They said that they would hold a meeting with the Speaker on Tuesday against what they termed as the “arrogance” of the chief minister, prior to their next step of protest.
