More of theatrics than practical work: Cong

The Congress today termed the Special Session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha as more of optics and less of practical work.

On the opening day of the session, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa said it was a “mockery of democracy” as the first day of the so-called Special Session was adjourned in just 11 minutes — at a cost of nearly Rs 1 crore, or Rs 9.09 lakh per minute, of public money.

“This government has turned governance into theatre and the Assembly into a stage for scripted drama,” Bajwa said, adding a special session called by the AAP government on Operation Lotus claiming that its MLA were offered bribe to switch parties had turned out to be more of theatrics.

He said he had formally written to Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan requesting an extension of the session to allow discussion on two critical issues: The alarming collapse of law and order in Punjab and the controversial Land P(f)ooling scheme, which farmers have widely rejected as land grab.

“Mark my words—he (CM Mann) will now take to social media and falsely claim that the Opposition skipped the session. But the truth is that this was never meant to be a real session. It was a PR stunt and an expensive one at that,” he said. Bajwa also questioned the credibility of the AAP government’s planned anti-sacrilege Bill, allegedly the reason for the Special Session.

“They haven’t even provided the Opposition with a copy of the Bill. I seriously doubt whether a draft even exists. The AAP government is not being run from Chandigarh—it’s being remote-controlled from Delhi by Arvind Kejriwal,” he asserted. Drawing a parallel to PM Modi’s black farm laws, Bajwa said, “Just as Modi tried to grab farmers’ land through contract farming, AAP—BJP’s B-team—is now trying the same through the Land P(f)ooling scheme. But Punjabis didn’t bow before Modi and they won’t bow before Kejriwal either.”

Bajwa said he would move court if Chandigarh Police fail to register a case against the top AAP leaders for editing a video posted on his official social media handle ‘X’ against Punjab Vigilance Bureau officials for their conduct against SAD MLA Ganieve Kaur while entering her house in connection with the FIR against her husband and Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia and then posting it on AAP’s social media handles to show as if he supported Majithia.

In his original video posted on June 25, Bajwa had alleged that he had spoken on the misconduct of the bureau against Ganieve and a similar misconduct earlier against Congress MLA Sukhpal Khaira. But it was edited and posted on social media handles of AAP to harm his political image and also that of the Congress through him.

Punjab