Session ‘too short’, Oppn slams govt

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 24

The Opposition parties today lashed out at the Congress government over the short duration of the upcoming Assembly session.

A delegation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), led by Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema, on Wednesday met Speaker Rana KP and submitted a memorandum seeking more days in the special Assembly session for discussing all core issues concerning Punjab and its people.

The delegation also demanded live broadcast of the House proceedings. The issues of concern that figured in the memorandum included water crisis, farm debt and suicides, menace of drugs and unemployment.

AAP MLA from Sunam Aman Arora, too, has written a letter to the Speaker, demanding that the session be extended from a mere two sittings to at least 15 sittings.

The SAD asked the government not to run away from discussing the burning issues of the state and asked Speaker Rana KP Singh to hold a three-week operative session so that issues such as suicide by farmers and educated youth, high power tariff, discrimination against poor and denial of SC scholarship could be discussed threadbare.

Former ministers Bikram Singh Majithia and Parminder Singh Dhindsa said the announcement of a two-day operative session by the Cabinet was akin to making mockery of democracy. “Though the session has been announced officially from August 2 to 6, there are two holidays in between and the first day is reserved for obituaries. This means the effective session will be for two days only. We will protest against this in the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee and demand that the session be extended for a three-week spell,” they said.