The bedlam indulged in by the Congress members followed the Congress Legislature Party leader Sunil Jakhar’s bringing the Dalit girl, the victim of the thrashing by Tarn Taran policemen and her father, into the CLP office located in the Assembly complex without passes which ‘were not issued despite my having completed all formalities.’

Jakhar protested against the plainclothes policemen, claimed to be the members of Assembly’s watch and ward staff, for “raiding” the CLP office for removing the ‘illegal entrants’. They were manhandled by some Congress MLAs who later protested in the House, which caused a pandemonium. The episode resulted in the suspension of nine party MLAs. All the Congress members walked out of the House declaring they would not end their boycott till the suspension of the nine members was revoked.

Although the actions of the Congress MLAs were inexcusable (Jakhar later owned the responsibility saying these should not have taken place), yet what happened is not a rare happening. Such actions have become common in the country’s Legislatures. In support of their demands, the members rush to the well of the House, resort to physical brawls, throw missiles, break furniture and even pull out microphones. However, what invited condemnation of the Congress MLAs actions in the Punjab Assembly was their mounting the Speaker’s podium and one of them even occupying the Speaker’s chair.

The last week’s incident was not unprecedented. The Punjab Assembly had atleast twice witnessed similar incidents in the past. Once, when the Akali rebel Lachhman Singh Gill was chief minister (November 25, 1967 to August 23, 1968), some Akali members had climbed to the Speaker’s podium and gheroed him.

In the second incident in which chief minister Parkash Singh was also involved happened in June 1986 when Surjit Singh Barnala was chief minister (September 29, 1985 to June 11, 1987). A group of Akali Dal MLAs led by Mr. Badal had dragged Speaker Surjit Singh Minhas, also a SAD member, from the chair and in the melee his turban also had fallen off. The din in the house occurred after the Badal group MLAs parted ways with the SAD led by Barnala.

The last week’s happenings in the Assembly have raised a controversy over the Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal’s role. Newspapers reported that Atwal while addressing the media during the course of day denied having issued any orders for locating the victim of Tarn Taran police excesses and her father and removing them from the Assembly. But late in the evening, he said in a statement that after his secretary informed him that Jakhar had brought some unauthorized persons to the State Assembly, “I immediately instructed the Secretary of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, to take prompt and appropriate action to cleanse the premises of any unidentified and unauthorised persons”.

During the Assembly’s winter session, the Speaker’s role had also generated a controversy in the case of the expletive exchanges between the Revenue Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh’s brother-in-Law Bikram Singh Majithia and the Congress member Rana Gurjit Singh. Atwal declared that he could not hear Majithia mouthing foul language because of the commotion in the House. His assertion came even as Majithia’s expletives were caught on the camera and were telecast live by a couple of TV channels and You Tube. Later the Speaker said that he had expunged the expletives the two members had exchanged even though he had not heard them.

It is unfortunate that the presiding officers of the state Assemblies are getting increasingly caught in the web of controversies because of their alleged partisan roles. Nearer home, some of the Haryana Assembly Speakers were often accused by the parties, when in opposition, for playing partisan role in favour of the ruling party. They have not learnt any lesson from the impartial role Lok Sabha Speakers have been playing in conducting the House. In this connection, the CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee’s role is an example. He risked his expulsion from his party by not obeying its diktat to resign for impartially conducting the proceedings of the House.

Coming back to the nine Congress MLAs suspension issue. A day after the incidents, Jakhar said that his party “fell into the trap laid by Sukhbir Singh Badal”. The statement amounts to admission by the opposition party that after his successful polls management resulting in Akali Dal’s successive electoral victories, Sukhbir has now scored over the Congress in political management. It is another matter that the competitive political one-upmanship between the ruling and the opposition party has lowered the functioning standards in the Assembly.

The last week’s developments have turned the focus, even if temporarily, away from the Akali-BJP government’s failures on the governance and performance fronts. But it is not going to take long for such lapses to start haunting the ruling leadership.

It will be a repetition to state that fiscal mismanagement has pushed Punjab to the brink of bankruptcy. Its cash crunch even forced the government to delay payment of salaries to its staff by a week in March. Money granted by the Center for specified development and welfare projects is diverted for meeting government’s day-to-day expenditure. The Centre has pulled up the state government for diverting Rs.5,000 crore granted for scheduled castes and backward classes welfare schemes for unspecified purposes.

While the government cannot afford to cut huge subsidies given to the farm sector, measures to mobilize additional resources will evoke protests, particularly from the urban areas, the BJP’s main support base, as has already started happening.

The worst is the case of law and order (Home portfolio is held by Sukhbir). The crime graph, particularly rapes and murders and involving goons of the Majithia-headed Youth Akali Dal has spiraled. On March 11, even the Supreme Court lashed Punjab police for thrashing a young girl and his father by Tarn Taran police when she approached it to lodge a complaint of sexual harassment against truck/taxi drivers.

In the light of the above developments, the question arises: Will the dominant ruling Akali leadership be able to start performing and end its non-governance? Signs of anti-incumbency sentiment are already gaining ground in the very first year, which it completed last week, of its second successive term. (IPA Service)