Ruckus in House as Cong takes on govt over debt
PANDEMONIUM PREVAILS AS CONG MLA SAYS BJP FUNCTIONING APPEARS AS IF ‘IT IS A GOVERNMENT OF THE RSS, BY THE RSS, FOR THE RSS’
CHANDIGARH: The ongoing Haryana budget session persistently witnessed heated arguments between the Congress legislators and treasury benches on Monday during the discussions on budget estimates which the Congress said completely ‘lacked vision’.
Pandemonium prevailed in the House for over half an hour as a senior Congress MLA, Raghuvir Kadian, went on to remark that the functioning of the BJP appeared as if it was a ‘government of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), by the RSS, for the RSS’ instead of being a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Kadian, who was taking swipes on the current regime, said it was shocking that the government was taking loans to pay the interests on debts. He tore into the government over the issue of debt, which he held had now skyrocketed to ₹1.98 lakh crore.
This led to sharp reactions from the treasury benches as almost all BJP MLAs, including parliamentary affairs minister Kanwar Pal, agriculture minister JP Dalal, Aseem Goyal, Seema Trikha, Abhe Yadav and Deepak Mangla, retorted that they were not like the Congress, which ‘prostrated just before a family for leadership’. They also held it the RSS which taught how to treat everyone as equal. Heated arguments between the Congress and BJP MLAs escalated when the former alleged that it was because of such forces that caused ‘Shaheen Bagh’ (referring to recent violence in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh over CAA) and BJP MLAs rebuked them by saying ‘everyone knew it was the Congress which believed in dividing the people as it had divided the country in the past’.
Earlier, Kadian had also evoked strong reaction from the treasury benches when he termed the budget a mere ‘tamasha’.
“Though I laud the intention of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar of consulting all the stakeholders prior to finalising the budget, unfortunately, it turned out to be a ‘tamasha’ as it lacks the very road map and vision for either progress or growth,” he added.
While BJP MLAs consistently protested his remarks, Kadian continued with his tirade and said since the CAG report had not been tabled as yet, seriousness of the government to have fair governance was unseen.
“The CM would have done better had he consulted his deputy Dushyant alone or incorporated all promises of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in his budget,” he said.
Earlier, the House witnessed uproar when BJP MLA Aseem Goyal held that the government had ended the previous government’s practice of ‘nazarana, jurmana, shukrana’ (bribes in form of complimentary gifts, fine and gratitude), thus irking the Congress MLAs. Minutes later, led by leader of opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, several Congress MLAs, including Geeta Bhukkal, Aftab Ahmed, Kiran Choudhry, Rao Dan Singh, Shakuntala Khatak and Mohammad Ilyas, raised the demand of granting more time to the opposition MLAs for speaking instead of BJP MLAs, resulting into furore in the House with BJP MLAs protesting against the same.
An uproar also was seen during the remarks of other Congress MLAs — BB Batra and Jagbir Malik — who alleged that the budget had failed to address issues confronting social welfare, health, education and stray cattle menace. JJP MLA Ram Kumar Gautam said while he lauded the budget, he wished the government ended the contract system.