Chandigarh: The opening day of the winter Session of the Haryana assembly on Friday witnessed heated arguments over the recent case of spurious liquor in Yamunanagar district that took lives of at least 20 people last month.
It was when the Speaker Gian Chand Gupta informed Congress members that their adjournment motion on the spurious liquor issue had been converted into a calling attention motion which irked the opposition benches.
Congress stages walkout
The leader of Opposition (LoP) Bhupinder Singh Hooda held that since it was an important issue it needed to be discussed urgently. However, when the Speaker held the same issues could be discussed during the calling attention motion as well, all the Congress members walked out of the House.
It may be recalled that at least 20 persons had lost their lives due to the spurious liquor and the ruling BJP-Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) government had launched a crackdown leading to the arrest of 13 persons including a local Congress leader. The BJP legislators also held that while the state government had arrested the accused in this case, the accused were never arrested during their (Congress) regime when such cases had occurred.
The House also witnessed noisy scenes when the opposition and treasury benches argued over the issue pertaining to sexual harassment of girl students of a Jind and a Kaithal government girls schools. It was subsequent to the arguments on the said issue, Speaker Gian Chand Gupta said that a written request on behalf of the Assembly will be sent, urging an investigation by a sitting judge from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Proposal for Haryana state song
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar introduced a proposal during the session to have the state's own song. Three songs chosen by the government were played in the House and the one decided by the House would be officially declared as the state song for the upcoming year.
While Haryana has its own emblem, it does not have a state song representing its history and culture and embodies the virtues and contributions of its people. The State Song once adopted would provide a new proud identity to all Haryanvis irrespective of their caste, gender, religion or economic status, he said.
