Chandigarh: Days after the Punjab governor Banwarilal Purohit said he believed that the calling of the special assembly session last month was "a breach of law and procedure", Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday held that it was "very unfortunate" that the governor did not know whether the session was legal or illegal.
Mann’s remark was in reaction to the June 17 letter written by Purohit to Mann in which he held that the two-day (June 19-20) session was in "breach of law and procedure" and also cast doubts on the legality of the four Bills passed therein.
Unsigned bill of free Gurbani broadcast
Notably, the governor’s letter was in response to Mann’s recent letter in which the latter had requested the governor to give assent to the Sikh Gurdwara (amendment) Bill, 2023, aimed at ensuring free broadcast of Gurbani from Golden temple, Amritsar sent after the session. Mann had gone on to say that it was regretted that the Bill sent to the governor on June 26 had not been signed till that date and this amounted to stifling the democratic will of the people of Punjab.
Reacting further to the latest letter of the governor, Mann on Saturday held that during the previous Capt Amarinder Singh government, the assembly session was called twice without the permission of the governor as the session was not progrogued and that the said session was called after consulting the experts.
'SGPC works on the whims and fancies of Badals'
Talking to newspersons after the event here where Mann sent off a group of principals to Singapore for training, Mann also took on SGPC for what he termed as "benefitting blue-eyed channel of Badals". He said that it was surprising that instead of working in the larger interest of humanity, the SGPC was acting on the whims and fancies of the Badal family by inordinately delaying the matter of free broadcast of the Gurbani.
It may be recalled that the SGPC had on Friday appealed to the GNext Media (PTC channel) to continue Gurbani broadcast from Golden Temple until the SGPC’s own satellite channel was put in place. PTC is said to be linked to the Badal family.
Meanwhile, it is not the first such run-in between Purohit and Mann. The rift between the two top functionaries of the state had started in October last year when the former had questioned the appointment of vice-chancellors of two state universities and subsequently the two had taken pot-shots at each other on various other issues since.
