As the three-day Monsoon session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha begins, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Partap Singh Bajwa, on Monday, accused the Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab Government of violating assembly rules of procedure by reducing the sitting days of the monsoon assembly session.
Citing the Assembly rules under section 14A, Bajwa said there should be at least 40 sitting days in a year. The government is going to complete its three-year term in March 2025. So far the AAP government has held the assembly sittings for 39 days only. Would it be able to hold 120 sitting days by March 2025?
"Before assuming power in Punjab, the AAP leadership used to say that they would hold 120 sittings in a year. In the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting, I took up the matter with Punjab Assembly Speaker, Kultar Singh Sandhwan but in vain", Bajwa added.
Senior Congress Leader, Bajwa said that the law and order situation has been deteriorating, drug menace, businessmen were getting extortion calls, justice on the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib was still pending, brain-drain caused by unemployment, farmers' plights, selling of spurious DAP, funds from the centre government scheme were going back, etc.
There are plenty of issues, that were urgently required to be discussed in the Vidhan Sabha."The AAP government is clearly running away from the genuine question of the opposition and issues that concern Punjab the most. The Punjab Chief Minister has no time to discuss these issues in the assembly", Said Bajwa.
The opposition leader said that the Punjab government has already consumed its limit of taking loans for this financial year. Meanwhile, the government has been left with no funds to pay the salaries and pensions of the government employees. This is one of the major reasons that the government has shortened the sittings of the monsoon session of the Punjab Assembly.