3 Congress MLAs suspended for six months
Members also debarred for 1 year from all assembly committees for contempt of the House for tearing copies of the governor’s address
CHANDIGARH: Haryana assembly speaker Kanwar Pal on Tuesday suspended three Congress MLAs, including former speaker Kuldeep Shar ma, from the House for six months for tearing the copies of the governor’s address in the Vidhan Sabha.
Besides Sharma, other two MLAs Jaiveer Singh and Jagbir Singh Malik, who tore the copies of the governor’s address in the well of the House on Monday, were also debarred for one year from being included in any assembly committee.
The speaker’s ruling on their suspension, probably the first time for such a long duration in the history of Haryana, came after health minister Anil Vij took up in the zero hour the issue pertaining to what he termed the contempt of the House by the Congress MLAs, who had first disrupted the governor’s address and later even tore the copies of the address.
Vij said that though the speaker had earlier suspended the Congress MLAs only till the discussion on the governor’s address – March 18 – the contempt demanded more stern action against them.
Vij was immediately joined by parliamentary affairs minister Ram Bilas Sharma, who proposed a motion for a stricter action against the three MLAs.
Sharma stressed upon the gravity of what he termed as a serious offence by the Congress MLAs, as per assembly rules, and went on to elaborately question as to where were the Congress MLAs during the Jat agitation when largescale violence was reported from various parts of the state, including their own towns and villages.
It was at this point that he was challenged by leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala and Independent MLA Jai Prakash, asking him not to bring in the issue of Jat agitation and stick to the contempt issue.
Abhay said it was wrong on the part of Sharma to have spoken on the Jat stir while a discussion on the issue had been already scheduled for March 21. “If you still want to discuss it now, I would inform you that even the INLD office and our petrol pump were damaged by BJP workers in Bhiwani area and attempts were made to break the statue of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal in Jind,” he said amid heated exchanges between the INLD and ruling BJP MLAs.
Though the speaker had earlier suspended the Congress MLAs only till the discussion on the governor’s address – March 18 – the contempt demands more stern action against them.
ANIL VIJ, health minister