Advantage Cong as AAP, SAD face battle within : The Tribune India

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Advantage Cong as AAP, SAD face battle within

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 11

The Congress is expected to sail through the three-day winter session of the Vidhan Sabha that begins on Thursday. The divided AAP and revolt-ridden SAD will have little arsenal to attack the treasury benches.

The parties may target the government over non-fulfillment of its poll promises, deteriorating law and order situation and the state of agrarian as well as general economy. But fiery debates may well be avoided, as were witnessed in the previous two sessions.

AAP will aim to shame the treasury benches for its failure to fulfil eight of the nine poll promises. On the other hand, the SAD-BJP alliance will be talking about the agrarian crisis, the flight of industry from the state and the deteriorating law and order situation.

Most MLAs of the rebel faction of AAP led by Sukhpal Khaira, which is taking out the “Insaaf March” are likely to skip the session, although Kharar MLA Kanwar Sandhu may attend all sittings.

The main highlight will be passing of the Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill that seeks to regulate the misuse of groundwater. The Bill was cleared by the Cabinet in the last meeting, and will come up for discussion in the House.

The House is also expected to ratify amendments made to the GST, which have already been passed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal told The Tribune, “We are required to get the amendments passed from the House at the earliest as the Lok Sabha has already passed these amendments in August. These aim at plugging loopholes in existing laws and reducing the compliance burden for taxpayers”.

Only one working day

Though the session is spread over three days till Saturday, the effective working day will only be Friday. The session will begin with the first sitting on Thursday concluding with obituary references. Friday will have two sittings of the House, while the session will be adjourned sine die on Saturday after a morning sitting.