Haryana Assembly witnesses two noisy walk-outs

Of these, 41 cases of rape, 19 kidnappings, 10 incidents of house burning, 34 murders and 4 abductions were related to scheduled castes, he added. When the home minister gave figures of cases solved by the state police, Sampat Singh reacted sharply, accusing the government of protecting some criminals by withdrawing cases against them. The HLD member cited the names of two persons of Hisar in this connection.

The Home Minister denied the charges but could not give any satisfactory response, sparking off a verbal clash between the members of the ruling and opposition parties. The HLD member expressed dissatisfaction with the reply and pressed for supplementaries on the question but was warned. Later, when the Speaker turned down his plea for supplementaries, the HLD members staged a walk-out, raising slogans against the HVP-BJP government.

The opposition members staged the second walk-out after the Speaker disallowed supplementaries to a question asked by HLD’s Ram Pal Majra about the gifts presented by the cooperative institutions to VIPs in the state. However, Cooperation Minister Narbir Singh said there were 17,000 such institutions and compilation of such information would be an extremely cumbersome and time consuming exercise. “The effort will not commensurate with the benefit likely to be obtained,” he insisted.

The reply infuriated the opposition members, who asked for permission to ask supplementaries. When the Speaker did not give permission, Congress member Birendra Singh said that attempts were being made to bail-out the Minister. Immediately, the entire opposition walked out of the house to protest against the ruling.

In response to another question of Sampat Singh, Minister of State for Irrigation Harsh Kumar admitted that the Haryana State Minor Irrigiation Tubewell Corporation (HSMITC) was over-staffed. During the period from 1977 to 1985, people were recruited on a large scale leading to over staffing, he added.

The Minister said the government was making efforts to reduce staff by deploying them in other departments. Already, about 500 employees had been adjusted in other departments. The government also planned to restructure the corporation. Sampat Singh expressed concern at the fact that the corporation had spent more money on office expenses, including salary and HRA, than on developmental activities.

Later, during the budget discussion in the house, members of the ruling HVP-BJP combine clashed with the Congress members after Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma made an out of context reference to nuclear tests at Pokhran. The Congress members were up on their feet, protesting against the attempts of the Minister to “water time of the house”.

Chief Minister Bansi Lal intervened to praise the Vajpayee led BJP government for the bold decision. The house should pass a resolution to praise the decision, he emphasised. Leader of opposition Om Prakash Chautala said the BJP government deserved praise for the nuclear tests but wanted to Vajpayee on Pokharan blasts in the house today.

During the discussion Haryan Health Minister Om Parkash Mahajan claimed that the striking nurses had called off their agitation and 70 per cent of the nursing staff had joined the duties. The announcement was made by Mahajan when the opposition members raised the issue of nurses’ strike. The Health Minister said that the nurses had withdrawn the agitation without any conditions.

While the opposition members claimed that the rest of the 30 per cent nurses had been arrested and sent to jail, the Minister said that the union leaders were threatening those nurses who had joined duties. He said that cent per cent nursing staff in the Rohtak Medical College had joined the duties. Others who took part in the budget discussion include Dhirpal Singh (Haryana Lok Dal), Nirmal Singh (IND), Chander Mohan (Congress), Anil Vij Ashok Kumar (HLD) and Jagdish Nayyar (HVP).