Congress stages walkout over assault on Colonel, action against farmers
Congress members, wearing black armbands, went the well of the House, raising slogans against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government
Congress legislators staged a walkout from the Punjab assembly on Friday during the governor’s address over the brutal police assault on a serving army colonel and his son in Patiala and the police action against farmers protesting at Shambhu and Khanauri borders.
On the opening day of the budget session of the assembly, the leader of opposition and Congress MLA Partap Singh Bajwa got up and tried to interrupt governor Gulab Chand Kataria’s address to the House. Kataria paused for a moment but then continued reading his address even as other Congress members got up from their seats. Bajwa tried to draw the governor’s attention to the two issues, but much of what he said was not audible.
Congress members, wearing black armbands, went the well of the House, raising slogans against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. They also displayed placards to criticise the Bhagwant Mann government in the state for ‘betraying’ farmers. The Congress legislators raised slogans for a few minutes before staging the walkout from the House.
Earlier, Bajwa demanded that a sitting or retired high court judge inquire into the assault of Colonel Pushpinder Singh Bath and his 22-year-old son Angad allegedly by 12 Punjab Police officials on March 13. “We demand an inquiry by a sitting or retired high court judge into the incident,” Bajwa told reporters before heading into the assembly.
Calling it a serious incident, the Congress leader said all erring Punjab Police officials should be arrested and dismissed from service. “Recently, (AAP national convener) Arvind Kejriwal was in Punjab, but neither he nor Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has uttered a word about the incident,” he said.
Bajwa also slammed the Mann government over the ‘deceitful’ manner in which the farmer leaders were detained. He said the barricades at the protest sites at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders were not put up by Punjab farmers but by the Haryana government. Punjab Police detained several farmer leaders, including Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, in Mohali on Wednesday as they were returning after a meeting with a central delegation led by Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Chandigarh in which Punjab ministers and officials were also present.
