Cong insists on revocation of 3 MLAs’ suspension

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 25

Seeking revocation of the suspension of three of its MLAs, the Congress Legislature Party will take the final call on its strategy for the monsoon session of the Haryana Vidha Sabha after its meeting just before the session gets underway tomorrow.

Addressing a press conference, Congress Legislature party leader Kiran Choudhry, accompanied by former Chief Minister and MLA Bhupinder Singh Hooda, said  the party was clear that the suspension had to be revoked if the BJP government wanted the Congress to participate.

“Though there are important issues like GST, the collapse of law and order machinery and the insurance scheme being thrust upon farmers, the decision on the suspended MLAs has to come first,” Choudhry said.

Three Congress MLAs, Kuldeep Sharma, Jagbir Singh Malik and Jaiveer Singh, were suspended for six months from the Assembly in the Budget session held in March . Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kunwar Pal Gujjar had also barred their nomination to any House committee for one year for “disrupting the Governor’s Address and tearing up its copies”.

 “The order to suspend the MLAs was illegal. The suspension has to be revoked unconditionally. In the last session, a consensus had once emerged to revoke the suspension but the government backtracked. Let them talk to us before we take a call on how to proceed. Our response will depend on their attitude,” Hooda said, claiming that the Congress will strongly opposed the “anti-farmer insurance scheme”.

Choudhry said that at a time when the state’s law and order was in doldrums, the BJP government was busy with its “tiranga yatra” even as many instances of insult to the National Flag had come to the fore.

“The government is yet to fulfil even one of its election poll promises but it is burdening the farmers with an insurance scheme. The BJP is taking credit for GST which was our baby,” she said.

Hinting at “rampant corruption” in the government, MLAs Kuldeep Sharma and Karan Dalal said a trust being run by the Chief Minister’s close relatives was “collecting money from builders” and there was nepotism in appointments and bungling in results of the police recruitment test. “The government has a lot of explaining to do,” they said.

While Hooda pointed out that Sports minister Anil Vij was missing from the reception accorded to Olympic awardee Sakshi Malik in Haryana because the “minister could not face the people”, Sharma explained 

that Vij, on a tour to Rio to watch the Olympics, was not present to encourage the sportspersons.