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Haryana calls special session after Punjab seeks transfer of Chandigarh
The special session will take place at 11am on April 5, a Haryana government spokesperson said,
The Manohar Lal Khattar government on Sunday decided to hold a special session of the Haryana assembly on April 5 in a move that is aimed at countering the Punjab assembly resolution about the transfer of Union Territory (UT) Chandigarh to the AAP-ruled border state.
The decision to summon a special session of the Vidhan Sabha was taken in a Cabinet meeting that Khattar chaired. The majority of the ministers joined this hurriedly convened Cabinet meeting via videoconferencing.
“The Cabinet meeting was held on Sunday and it was decided that a special session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha will be called on April 5 at 11 am,” an official spokesperson said.
The immediate provocation behind convening the special session of the assembly is the contentious resolution that the Punjab assembly on Friday passed reiterating the state’s claim on UT Chandigarh, the joint capital of both neighbouring states.
The resolution in the Punjab assembly was passed in the absence of two BJP legislators who had staged a walkout from the House.
As the war of words between Punjab and Haryana is becoming shriller over different outstanding issues, Khattar on Sunday reiterated that Chandigarh is also the capital of Haryana and that it will remain the Capital in the future as well.
“We will not allow Punjab to take away Chandigarh from us,” Khattar said in Karnal.
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On Saturday, Khattar had sought an apology from AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann for bringing a resolution seeking the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab.
Within days after the AAP government assumed power in Punjab, Khattar had opened the front over the long-standing Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal logjam.
During the special session, the ruling BJP-JJP coalition government is expected to discuss all contentious inter-state issues related to Punjab.
