CHANDIGARH – Condemning the partisan role played by the Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan by ordering marshalling out of all the Congress MLAs on the first day of the session,
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today said that it not only amounted to stifling the voice of the opposition, but was murder of democracy. “It has never happened in the history of the Vidhan Sabha that entire opposition was marshalled out on the very first day of its new session”, he pointed out.
Addressing a joint press conference alongwith senior party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa here today, Warring said, the Aam Aadmi Party government had accused the Punjab Governor of committing murder of democracy when he had raised genuine queries and here their Speaker threw away the entire opposition to bring in the “vote of confidence” through backdoor.
Reiterating that there was no need for enacting such drama, Warring said, AAP was running away from the real issues. He pointed out, the government had claimed to discuss power situation, stubble burning and GST but they never talked about any of these issues. Instead, he added, they brought in “vote of confidence” motion when nobody asked for it.
The PCC president also raised the important issue of rampant illegal sand mining going on in Punjab despite a ban on it. He disclosed that in order to legitimise the illegal sand mining the government had claimed availability of “pending” stocks at various pits across the state. He said, according to the government estimates sand worth about Rs 40 crores was shown to be lying near these pits. But actually, he revealed, there were no pending stocks. This story was concocted to hoodwink the rules as fresh sand extraction was still going on illegally depsite the ban on it. He asked, if there were pending stocks and these had been sold off, let the government and mining department show where the money has been deposited after the sale of this sand. “Either show us the sand or show us the money”, he asked the government.
The PCC president said the honeymoon period of this government is over and it has to answer so many questions and the fake promises it made to people. He pointed out how the government promised to install the statues of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Baba Saheb Ambedkar in the Vidhan Sabha complex which they never did as they never could because this is not permissible as Vidhan Sabha is a heritage building. “This is a classic example as how AAP recklessly promises things without realising whether such promises can be fulfilled or not”, Warring remarked.
Referring to the naming of the Mohali Airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh, he said, it was the Congress party which has started the campaign for this purpose. He also said that while Chandigarh is indeed the captial of Punjab and belongs exclusively to it, the Mohali Airport should have been named as Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali after the city (Mohali) it is in.
Both Warring and Randhawa said that no matter how many times the AAP government repeated its lies, they have been already exposed on front of the people of Punjab and that is the reason they are trying to enact the dramas like “Operation Lotus”, making hilarious claims like one made by one of their MLAs that he was offered Rs 100 crores to leave the party.
PCC spokespersons Teena Chaudhary, Jagmeet Singh Dhillon and Narender Singh Sandhu were also present during the press conference.
