Cong factionalism to fore on Assembly session eve

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 26

Ahead of the Budget session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha that begins tomorrow, leaders of the state Congress legislature party stand divided yet again.

Sources said this time round, the bone of contention was the time allocated to the Congress legislators to participate in the discussion on the Governor’s address and the debate on the Budget.

“Our party has been allocated nearly an hour to speak on the basis of the MLA-strength. However, we hardly get any time since most of the party time is consumed by CLP leader Kiran Choudhry, who has decided to open every debate and discussion while MLAs’ claims are ignored,” an MLA owing allegiance to the Bhupinder Singh Hooda camp alleged.

Some MLAs have reportedly approached party general secretary and Haryana in charge Kamal Nath in this regard. Some of the MLAs belonging to the Hooda faction alleged the CLP meeting before the session had become meaningless since none of the MLAs were consulted or involved in giving calling attention motions for the session.

“Unlike the INLD that gives calling attention motions in the name of its MLAs to give each of them a chance to speak, our leadership in the House makes no such attempt to involve us at any level,” another MLA said.

Dismissing the allegations as “frivolous”, Choudhry, who met party general secretary Kamal Nath to brief him about various issues the party intends to raise in the House, said, “I forward names of all MLAs who want to speak. It is up to the Speaker to decide who he wants to allow. None of these issues are in my knowledge. We are having a meeting tomorrow and we will plan our entire House strategy there.”

Meanwhile, Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker, Kanwar Pal Gujjar, said all members of the House, especially those belonging to the Opposition, will be provided maximum time for discussion on Governor’s Address and Budget.

He said 40 sittings of the 13th Vidhan Sabha had been held over 159 hour and 23 minutes in two years of tenure up to November, 2016, which reflected the exemplary functioning of the present government.

He said 17 calling-attention notices, two short-notice questions, three non-government proposals and four government Bills have so far been received for the upcoming session.

Apart from this, 510 starred questions have been received, of which 351 have been approved, besides 93 unstarred questions of which 59 have been approved. He said all approved questions had been forwarded to the government for reply.

He said 69 sittings were held between 1999 and 2004, 69 between 2005 and 2009 whereas only 56 sittings were held between 2009 and 2014.