Akalis bowl over treasury benches with ‘sher-o-shayari’
CHANDIGARH: Having had a fair share of heated war of words during the ongoing budget session of the Punjab assembly, the treasury and opposition benches are now revelling in some ‘sher-o-shayari’.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is using poetry to disarm the ruling Congress, both inside and outside the House.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Akalis are circulating videos on social networking sites mocking chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh with Punjabi ‘tappe’ and ‘boliyan’ on the promises he had made in the run-up to the 2017 assembly elections.
During the debate on the governor’s address, former minister Bikram Singh Majithia took on the government’s poll promises, belting out couplets. On Friday, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Badal’s love for poetry too had “in-house” competition. During debate on the the budget, the opposition dissected it, sher by sher.
Manpreet’s predecessor, Akali leader Parminder Singh Dhindsa, said both ‘amdani’ (income) and ‘kharcha’ (expenditure) have been fudged. “There is lot of ‘hera-pheri’ (chicanery). The unfunded gap is not ₹2,323 crore as Manpreet would like us to believe but over ₹4,000 crore,” Dhindsa said.
He did not conclude his speech without taking a jibe at Manpreet’s love for famous Urdu poet Allama Iqbal. Manpreet’s budget speeches, including the ones he presented as during the Akali Dal goverment, have been replete with Iqbal’s poetry.
“Mere vi supne wich raati Allama Iqbal aye (Allama Iqbal came in my dream too),” Dhindsa said, throwing both the ruling and treasury benches into peels of laughter. Then he said, “Tujhe fursat mile to gin lena, kitne vaade udhaar hai tujh par (if you get time, count how many promises remain unmet).”
An amused Manpreet got up to say, “I do not mind what you said. Par ena halka sher Iqbal da nai ho sakda (such a frivolous couplet cannot be of Iqbal).”
Claiming that the cut in value added tax (VAT) on fuel will be back after the polls, AAP legislator Gurmeet Singh ‘Meet’ Hayer too ended his speech with a ‘sher’. Then Akali Dal’s NK Sharma took to poetry to slam the budget.
“There has been more charcha (talk) on Allama Iqbal than on the budget. In my village, no one has heard about Allama Iqbal,” Sharma said, before hitting out at the poll promises of the Congress with his own sonnet, repeating the lines, “Tuwade jhoot da pulinda ajj mein kholna. Koi roke jina marzi, ajj mein sach bolna (I will expose your bundle of lies; stop me if you can).”
Congress’ Gidderbaha legislator and former Indian Youth Congress (IYC) president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring got up to counter Sharma. “Are you speaking on the budget or reciting a poem? It is a serious discussion on the budget.”
But Sharma, despite being told by speaker Rana KP Singh to sit down as his time was over, went on to complete his poem. As for Warring, he was later seen having a friendly tussle with minister Vijay Inder Singla over something he was reading from a mobile phone.
FINANCE MINISTER MANPREET BADAL QUESTIONS WHETHER A COUPLET CITED BY SAD’S PARMINDER DHINDSA WAS THAT OF URDU POET IQBAL