Fed up and sick of din in House over SYL issue, says Speaker
CHANDIGARH: Arguments over credits for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal flew thick and fast in the Haryana assembly on Friday. While Congress MLAs marched to the well, BJP members stood their ground. The speaker was repeatedly heard saying that the House was ‘fed up’ hearing on the SYL canal.
The ruckus began when BJP MLA Prem Lata, while speaking on the governor’s address, referred to the SYL canal. Following this, Congress legislature party leader Kiran Chaudhry, INLD’s Jaswinder Singh Sandhu and several BJP MLAs started speaking on the issue. However, speaker, Kanwar Pal, asked the House to avoid it.
“Good that Kuldeep Bishnoi is not in the House, else he too would have claimed that his father and former chief minister Bhajan Lal got it (SYL canal) constructed,’’ he quipped.
As the din escalated, the speaker was repeatedly heard saying that it was sad that while not a drop has come through the canal to Haryana, the issue is consuming most of the time the
SYL par sun sun ke kaan pak gayen hain, sara House is par sun sun ke dookhi ho gaya hai (The House is tired and troubled after hearing about the SYL). KANWAR PAL, speaker
House has at its disposal.
Congress MLA Raghuvir Kadian raised a point of order and sought to speak on the subject. However, he was denied permission by the speaker.
At this point ,the speaker said, “SYL par sun sun ke kaan pak gayen hain, sara House is par sun sun ke dookhi ho gaya hai (The House is tired and troubled after hearing about the SYL issue all this while),’’ he said. This apparently angered Kadian and other Congress MLAs. They argued that the speaker cannot deny him time to speak on the issue as he had raised a point of order. In protest, they marched to the well of the House. Even though Kadian was latter allocated time, the din continued as the treasury benches and the Opposition continued countering each other.
Parliamentary affairs minister Ram Bilas Sharma urged the speaker to give other MLAs time to speak on the governor’s address, arguing that it ‘appears that the Opposition has nothing new to say’.