Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and AAP legislators today disrupted Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal's budget speech for a while by protesting against "insufficient" allocation of funds for farm debt waiver scheme.
As soon as the minister started to read out budgetary proposals of Rs 4,250 crore for 2018-19 fiscal for farm loan waiver, SAD MLAs led by Bikram Singh Majithia raised from their seats and shouted slogans in the Assembly demanding total debt waiver, which they claimed be around Rs 95,000 crore.
"This is a betrayal with farmers," Majithia alleged. Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, however, did not join the slogan shouting SAD MLAs and later walked out from the House.
The Akali MLAs rushed to the well of the Assembly and later, led by SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, staged a walkout.
As the state finance minister continued to read out the budgetary proposals for financial year 2018-19, AAP MLAs stormed into the Well of the Assembly claiming that the budgetary allocation for crop loan waiver was insufficient.
The AAP MLAs too walked out from the House. But later, some of them came back and listened to the remaining portion of the budget speech of the minister.
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Earlier, during the Question Hour, SAD's Bikram Singh Majithia and Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu were involved in a heated exchange of words and most of their comments against each other were expunged by the Speaker.
Senior AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira said that Majithia and Sidhu were "using unparliamentary language and wasting precious time of the House".