Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana KP Singh on Friday suspended all Shiromani Akali Dal MLAs for the remainder of the Budget Session after they disrupted Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s reply to the governor’s address, Hindustan Times reported.
The SAD politicians called Singh’s speech a “bundle of lies” and stormed the well of the House. Meanwhile, Congress MLAs shouted slogans against the Opposition for interrupting the chief minister.
The Shiromani Akali Dal MLAs sloganeered when Singh criticised their party’s President Sukhbir Singh Badal and former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal for initially backing the farm laws, according to Hindustan Times. The speaker, then, announced their suspension.
The SAD pulled out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance in September as protests against the laws intensified in Punjab. Harsimrat Kaur Badal had quit her central post in protest against the farm laws on September 18.
Sukhpal Khaira, the former leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, spoke about the alleged brutality against a protestor at Singhu border, the centre of the farmers’ protest against the agricultural laws, according to The Tribune. Khaira alleged that the protestor was taken into custody with help from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Meanwhile, Akali Dal MLAs refused to leave the House and staged a protest, after which the police had to force them out, The Tribune reported. One of the legislators, Pawan Kumar Tinu, tried to enter the Vidhan Sabha again after being pushed out by the police.
A group of MLAs from the Shiromani Akali Dal also staged a protest outside the state Assembly against the increase in power tariffs.
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