Haryana assembly session beginning Friday likely to be a stormy affair

The monsoon session of the

Haryana assembly beginning here Friday is likely to be a stormy affair with the Opposition set to corner the BJP-led government on issues of law and order and the SYL canal, amongst others.

The first day of the session will start with obituary references at 2 pm.

Leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala said the main issues his party Indian National Lok Dal would raise include "illegal mining, deaths of cows in gaushalas, drug smuggling and addiction, SYL canal, deteriorating law and order situation and the plight of health services in the state."

INLD would raise these issues through the adjournment and calling attention motions, he said.

 

"We will also raise the issue of irregularities in various land deals during the previous Congress regime in the state," he added.

He said the INLD had prepared a charge-sheet in 2014 against "the misdeeds" of the previous government and had sought establishment of a high-level panel to investigate the allegations and registration of cases, if the charges were found true.

"When the matter was raised earlier in the assembly, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had assured the House that appropriate action would be taken after studying the charge-sheet," Chautala told reporters here.

Referring to the case registered by Gurgaon police last week against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra and former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for alleged irregularities in land deals, he suspected the complainant in the case to be close to the BJP.

The case against Vadra and Hooda was lodged on a complaint by a Nuh resident, Surinder Sharma.

The FIR said Vadra's firm Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd bought 3.5 acres of land in Gurgaon's Sector 83 from Onkareshwar Properties for Rs 7.50 crore in 2008, when Hooda was the chief minister with Town and County Planning Department also under him.

Skylight Hospitality later sold the land to realty major DLF for Rs 58 crore, after procuring with Hooda's help the licence to develop a residential colony there, Sharma alleged.

Reacting to the lodging of the FIR, Hooda has accused the BJP government of pursuing "vendetta politics".

Talking separately to the reporters, Congress Legislature Party leader Kiran Choudhry asserted the Khattar government has failed on all fronts.

She said it has failed in tackling law and order situation, containing corruption, uplifting the plight of the poor and farmers and providing optimum water and power in the state.

The government has opened women police stations but the crime against women is on the rise, she alleged.

The Opposition has also been asking the government to bring an ordinance to protect the interests of the employees hit by a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict, setting aside the provision for regularising the services of contractual employees.

Meanwhile, the Business Advisory Committee of the assembly will meet on Friday morning to decide on the number of sittings of the House and various businesses to be transacted during the session.

The monsoon session was to begin earlier on August 17, but it was postponed due to the demise of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.