SAD-BJP legislative parties submit privilege motion against CM for misleading Punjab Assembly
Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislative wings on Tuesday submitted a privilege motion against chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh for misleading the Vidhan Sabha and asserted that conflicting statements were being made on the sensitive issue of sacrilege to derail investigations.
The SAD-BJP legislative wings led by SAD legislative party leader Parminder Singh Dhindsa and including BJP legislators submitted the privilege motion to assembly Speaker Rana K P Singh and requested that it be accepted. The legislative wing also submitted evidence to prove that the chief minister had misled the assembly.
Giving details of the privilege motion, Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia said the CM had misled the assembly by citing a court dated July 25, 2019, selectively and made out a case that the erstwhile SAD-BJP government should not have forwarded the case for investigation into sacrilege of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj to the CBI.
The leaders said the real facts of the case were completely different. They said the CM had contradicted his own statement of July 31, 2019, in which he had called for a reinvestigation of sacrilege cases by the CBI. They said even earlier on November 6, 2015, Capt Amarinder had stated that the cases of sacrilege incidents be probed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court. The leaders said on this occasion Capt Amarinder Singh was accompanied by then Congress president Rahul Gandhi and PCC president Partap Bajwa who had both demanded a CBI inquiry into the sacrilege cases.
Mr. Dhindsa and Mr. Majithia said this was not all. They said the Punjab government made a formal request in this direction also with the DGP Bureau of Investigations writing a letter to the CBI Director on July 29, 2019, with the consent of the State DGP. They said the letter stated that the SIT constituted by the Punjab government had revealed certain witnesses/suspects were still left to be examined and that technical evidence collected by it needed further analysis including coordination with agencies abroad. The leaders said as per the official communication the government requested that in light of these facts the CBI should probe all three cases of sacrilege incidents further.
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Mr. Majithia said the Punjab government was further exposed by the CBI Investigating Officer in the CBI court in Mohali who when asked disclosed that no State official or Punjab police official had contacted him with regard to the investigations into the cases of sacrilege.
The legislative wing leaders said all these facts pointed out that the chief minister had cherry-picked a particular court order to mislead the august House. Mr. Majithia said the CM was facilitated by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to give a tailor-made answer which suited the Congress party politically. He said after this act was stage-managed the Speaker cut short the zero hours and did not allow the SAD to put its viewpoint across. “Yesterday also the SAD was denied permission to speak on the issue of sacrilege indicating AAP was being used by the Congress party as a B team and was playing a fixed match in league with the Congress”.
Stating that the SAD stood for transparency and wanted to protect the sanctity of the temple of democracy, the SAD-BJP delegation requested the Speaker to look into the facts of the case and accept the privilege motion at the earliest. The delegation also requested that the Speaker should stand up as a bulwark to protect democratic norms and not allow anyone to play politics for their selfish narrow interests and mislead the august House in any manner.
The legislative members included Pawan Kumar Tinu, NK Sharma, Sharanjit Singh Dhillon, Lakhbir Singh Lodhinangal, Kanwarjit Singh Rozy Barkandi, Harinderpal Chandumajra, Baldev Khaira, Dilraj Singh Bhundar, Dr. Sukhwinder Sukhi, Dinesh Kumar Babbu and Arun Narang.
-PTC News
