Chandigarh: High drama marked the day one of the Punjab Assembly’s Budget Session in Chandigarh on Friday with ruling AAP and opposition Congress exchanging heated arguments over Governor Banwarilal Purohit referring to the state government as “my government’’ in his address.
Treasury benches and Congress legislators created ruckus when the governor started reading out his address and called AAP government as “my government”.
Leader of the opposition Partap Singh Bajwa objected, saying the governor should not refer to the state government as his government as the AAP government had addressed him as “selected” and itself as “elected” representatives.
Pertinently, Bajwa’s barb followed the recent controversy when chief minister Bhagwant Mann responding to governor's queries, said he was answerable to 3 crore Punjabis and not to the one “appointed” by the Centre.
CM duty-bound to reply to governor’s queries
Mann’s reply was to governor’s letter stating he had looked askance at issues pertaining to government’s functioning and asked Mann to reply before he (governor) gave his nod to the budget session. The AAP government had moved the Supreme Court, which rapped both for a public spat and said the CM was duty-bound to reply to governor’s queries and the governor, for summoning the session.
Bajwa continued by saying the AAP legislators had still not accepted him as one of them and not responded to his queries.
Stopping his address, Purohit told the Congress leader there should be no controversy as it was an important session. When the opposition MLAs created an uproar, the governor accepted their demand and started his speech. Mann stood up and said the governor should refer to the government as “my government”. At this point, Mann and Bajwa also got engaged in heated arguments. Subsequently, Purohit held he would refer to it as “my government”.
The House again saw an uproar when the governor mentioned the state’s decision to send principals to Singapore for training and the Congress MLAs asked him if the government had replied to former’s queries. They staged a walkout when the governor said he was confident of getting the reply.
Session in two phases
Meanwhile, while obituary references were paid in the second sitting of the session to the prominent persons who died after the adjournment of the last session, the discussion on the governor’s address would take place on March 6 onwards.
While the ongoing first phase would continue till March 11 before a break for two G20 meetings to be held in Amritsar, the second phase would be held between March 22 and 24. The state’s first full budget of the AAP government would be presented by finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on March 10.
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