Cong MLAs evicted from Haryana House

Chandigarh: The first day of the Haryana Assembly session on Monday witnessed noisy scenes as members of opposition Congress were evicted after they remained adamant on the demand for a debate on the shelving of the Dadupur- Nalvi canal scheme by the state government.

After the reading out of obituary resolutions, Congress MLAs, including former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kiran Chowdhary and Randeep Singh Surjewala, sought a debate on the scrapping of the canal project, claiming that the decision would hit the farmers hard.

Congress MLAs said they had brought an adjournment motion on the issue and demanded that a debate be held. However, when the Speaker Kanwar Pal did not relent, all the Congress members trooped to the Well of the House, pressing for a discussion on the "burning issue".

The Speaker while trying to persuade the Congress MLAs to go back to their seats said that he had accepted the adjournment motion and it would be taken up tomorrow.

The Congress members kept demanding an immediate discussion. The Speaker first 'named' all the Congress MLAs and then asked the watch and ward staff of the Assembly to evict them.

The Congress MLAs, while being taken out of the House, raised slogans against the BJP led government in the state.

Later, talking to reporters, senior Congress leader and MLA Kuldeep Sharma said that once an adjournment motion is accepted in the House, it cannot be postponed.

"It should be taken up immediately. It seems the government was not ready for it, that is why it was postponed for Tuesday," claimed Sharma.

Surjewala said the attitude of the BJP government in the state was "anti-peasant".

"There is no provision in the law to return land acquired by the government for this project," Surjewala, who is also national media in-charge of the Indian National Congress, asserted.