Haryana Opposition to stay away
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 4 — The entire Opposition, comprising the Haryana Lok Dal (Rashtriya) and the Congress, today decided to boycott the rest of the current Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha unless the suspension of nine MLAs by the Speaker was revoked.

MLAs belonging to these two parties took this decision at a joint meeting here which was also attended by Mr Dev Raj Dewan, an Independent.

Prof Sampat Singh (HLDR), who is among the suspended MLAs, told newsmen later that he, along with Congress leader Khurshid Ahmed met Governor Mahabir Prasad this morning and sought his intervention in revoking the suspensions.

In view of the above decision all members of the Opposition boycotted the discussion on the Haryana Budget proposals when the House met here this afternoon.

In the absence of the Opposition, the discussion was started by Mr Satya Narain Lathar, Minister of State for Housing. Instead of discussing the Budget proposals, Mr Lather, by and large, concentrated on the Meham happenings which took place during the Chief Ministership of Mr Om Parkash Chautala.

Mr Lathar alleged that Mr Chautala and Mr Bhajan Lal had joined hands against the present government. He also recalled that no progress had been made on the construction work on the SYL canal during the time when Mr Devi Lal was the Deputy Prime Minister and earlier the Chief Minister of Haryana. Mr Lathar alleged that during Mr Bhajan Lal's time, has son used to recruit policemen. It was up to him to reject or select anyone. But during the present regime, he claimed police recruitment had been done on merit.

Mr Nirmal Singh, an Independent, praised the development works being executed by the Bansi Lal Government. He welcomed the slab system of power tariff for tubewells. Over 12,000 farmers, he claimed, had been benefited by this measure. Mr Nirmal Singh demanded the introduction of English as a subject in schools from Class I. He also hailed the appointment of Lok Ayukta in the state.

Mr Somvir Singh claimed that the present government had won the confidence of the people by checking corruption and executing development programmes. He said the Rewari lift irrigation scheme was under implementation and it would help the area significantly.

Later talking to newsmen, Mr Ram Bilas Sharma, Education Minister, said the Opposition members had failed to discharge their duty of offering constructive criticism by staying in the Vidhan Sabha and expressing the views of the people.

Capt Ajay Singh Yadav (retd), who was also among those who had boycotted the session, said it was a directionless Budget which was against the interests of farmers, labourers, traders and employees. The law and order situation in the state had crumbled and the government was being described by the people as "dumb and deaf." Mr Yadav claimed that massive excise evasion had eroded the government's treasury. The Enforcement Department had become totally ineffective after the unsolved murder of the ETO at Faridabad and the transfer of two senior excise officers at Chandigarh and Rohtak who were instrumental in the exposure of evasion by a close associate of a senior government functionary. He claimed that the Transport Department had suffered a cumulative loss of Rs 200 crore in the past three years. It was due to the bad maintenance and bad management of vehicles that there had been 96 major accidents, besides 5,968 breakdowns till December last year.