India News | Cong MLAs Walk out of Punjab Assembly After Session Duration Not Extended

Chandigarh, Nov 29 (PTI) Congress MLAs walked out of the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday after Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan refused to extend the current winter session.

The opposition leaders claimed they were not given enough time to discuss the state's burning issues, including the deteriorating law and order situation, and drugs.

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On the concluding day of the two-day session of the Punjab Assembly, the Congress members urged the Speaker to extend the session duration to discuss several important issues of the state.

After Punjab Minister Bram Shanker Jimpa tabled the Transfer of Property (Punjab Amendment) Bill 2023, Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa asked the Speaker about the status of the resolution that he had proposed against the Centre on the farmers' issues.

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The Speaker told Bajwa that he had not followed proper procedure.

The Congress leader then asked the Speaker about the extension of the duration of the assembly session to discuss ten important issues like law and order, the drug menace and sacrilege.

Bajwa said that he had written to the Speaker to allow the opposition enough time to discuss these matters and added that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had also stated that sufficient time would be given for discussion in the House.

“We wanted this session to be extended by at least three to four days,” said Bajwa.

The Speaker told Bajwa that all the important issues have already been discussed in the House.

He said that the issues of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, law and order, and drugs have been discussed in the session.

To this, Bajwa said, “We need time to discuss these issues. There has to be a detailed discussion. You cannot have it in Zero Hour for two minutes. Law and order cannot be discussed this way.”

When the Speaker did not heed their requests, the Congress members rushed to the well of the House.

Jimpa slammed the Congress members for disrupting the proceedings and said, "They are wasting the time of the Vidhan Sabha".

Congress leader and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party government over the “deteriorating” law and order situation in the state.

Citing a firing incident in Batala, Randhawa said the situation is “quite bad”.

The Congress MLAs later walked out of the House.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)