New Delhi: Congress MLAs staged a walkout against the conversion of their adjournment motion on spurious liquor into a calling attention motion on the first day of the winter session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha here today, even as the legislators balanced the acrimonious scenes by taking potshots at one another to lighten the mood.
The Congress made most of the tussle between the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) and Health Minister Anil Vij and Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's solution to the impasse as the proceedings of the House progressed.
To a question on AIIMS, Rewari, by Congress MLA Chiranjeev Rao, Vij said the project was being implemented by the Centre, prompting the Congress MLAs to poke fun and state that he was out of touch with the developments because he was not attending to departmental files over tension with the CMO.
Vij discontinued clearing files of the Health Department for two months after an officer of the CMO chaired a meeting to review the department's working. Vij's contention was that he did not hold the charge of the department in the work distribution of the CMO, while the officer's wife was heading the department as Director-General Health Services (DGHS). The CM, last week, “bought peace” by elevating the DGHS as a member of the Haryana Public Service Commission.
On this “solution”, Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda cracked a joke about how a constable was promoted as DSP and transferred out after lawyers went on a strike in protest against his misbehaviour with a colleague.
The session began with Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala taking a dig at Congress MLA Indu Raj for repeating a question about underpasses in his constituency from the monsoon session without “changing a comma or full stop”, while adding that the Railways Department at the Centre could answer it.
The Congress was sharp to retort that the questions had to be repeated when the members get empty assurances, or no replies. The MLA, unhappy with the reply, said, “Sometimes, you talk of twin-engine government at the state and Centre and triple engines. It seems all your engines are failing.”
The Congress protested when Speaker Gian Chand Gupta read out that their adjournment motion had been converted into a calling attention motion. Urging them to participate in the discussion on the motion, the Speaker said he was only following in the Congress' footsteps in doing so, while adding that the party had done that six times when it was in power.
To this, Hooda urged the Speaker to make his own path rather than tread the Congress line, even as Congress MLA Aftab Ahmed said, “You had said the Bills will be circulated three days prior to the session. We have not got anything so far. You are going back on your own practices.”
Congress MLA Neeraj Sharma's words were expunged after the Chief Minister objected to his “emotional statement”, stating that it was “dangerous”. The MLA was asking for grants for the MC for certain projects.
