Pandemonium prevailed in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on Friday after speaker Kanwar Pal asked the finance minister Capt Abhimanyu to give his reply on the debate on budget after MLAs’ discussion on it for three days.
Soon after the speaker’s direction, almost all the MLAs of opposition parties – INLD and Congress - stood up and demanded opportunity to speak in the discussion. The speaker contended that he had given more time to the opposition MLAs than the treasury benches.
The uproar continued despite the Chair’s repeated appeals and instructions, even as he asserted that the opposition MLAs had been given 236 minutes and the BJP’s around 198 to speak on the budget.
ABHAY, KIRAN ON FEET
Not only all the INLD MLAs, including leader of the Opposition Abhay Chautala were on their feet seeking time to speak, Congress legislature party leader Kiran Choudhry, along with Karan Dalal, Raghubir Singh Kadian and Anand Singh Dangi, also laid their claims.
Seeking time for INLD MLAs, Chautala even went on to say that Congress MLAs could be ignored as they had come to the House, without any homework and with a sole purpose to create ruckus as they did not have any issue worth discussion.The Opposition’s uproar got compounded as BJP ministers Capt Abhimanyu and Kavita Jain and party MLAs, including Subhash Barala, Abhay Yadav, Pawan Saini, Kamal Gupta, Gian Chand Gupta and Krishan Panwar too added to the din.
{{/usCountry}}Seeking time for INLD MLAs, Chautala even went on to say that Congress MLAs could be ignored as they had come to the House, without any homework and with a sole purpose to create ruckus as they did not have any issue worth discussion.The Opposition’s uproar got compounded as BJP ministers Capt Abhimanyu and Kavita Jain and party MLAs, including Subhash Barala, Abhay Yadav, Pawan Saini, Kamal Gupta, Gian Chand Gupta and Krishan Panwar too added to the din.
{{/usCountry}}The speaker could be heard telling Congress MLAs that he had not only given time to two MLAs whose names CLP leader Kiran Choudhry had given to him, but allowed many more party MLAs. The BJP MLAs told the Congress MLAs that they ought to have trust in their leader who sought only two of them to speak.
The din deepened when Dalal said that the ruling party perhaps did not have courage to face the Congress to which the BJP MLAs again aggressively reacted. Independent MLA from Kayalat Jay Prakash made loud claims to speak and threatened to stage a walkout.
Dalal pointed out that the state government had decided to levy 5% cess on VAT and the amount collected on this account would be transferred to local bodies in ratio of 80% for ULBs and 20% to PRIs respectively, while the government was claiming that there was no tax in this budget. Capt Abhimanyu attempted to pacify him by saying that he would explain the technical aspect if he (Dalal) would come to him to understand it.