BJP, INLD criticise short duration of Haryana Assembly session

Opposition BJP and INLD today protested against "short duration" of Haryana Assembly seesion, saying elected representatives do not get enough time to raise "burning issues" being faced by the people of the state.
As the two-day long session started, senior BJP leader Anil Vij raised the issue of short duration after the obituary resolutions were passed.
"We can't raise and discuss burning problems being faced by the people of the state in just two days session. In the past too, there have been sessions of short duration," Vij said.
"This is the last session of the Hooda government (Haryana goes to polls in October). But the Congress government has murdered democracy by having such a short duration session," he said.

Vij said important legislation like the Haryana Sikh Gurudwaras (Management) Bill, 2014, which was passed by the House today, was a 46-page Bill "for which the government should have given enough time to the Opposition to go through and study in detail".
INLD's senior leader Ramphal Majra told the House that having short-duration Assembly sessions "were just making a mockery of the democracy because elected representatives get very less time to take up people's issues."

However, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said the opposition members are given enough time by the Speaker to raise the issues.
He also claimed that those opposition MLAs who are part of the Business Advisory Committee, which decides the duration of the House, don't raise their voice when BAC meets and only create ruckus inside the Assembly.

Vij, however, said BJP MLA Kavita Jain, who was a member of the BAC, had sought long duration of the session when the Committee last met.
The House, which met in the afternoon, was adjourned for an hour after it had paid tributes to various personalities including former Union minister Gopinath Munde, former Haryana Minister Dhirpal Singh, former MLA Pratap Singh Chautala, besides freedom fighters and martyrs of Haryana who passed away recently.
When the House re-assembled after its adjournment by the Speaker, it passed the National Law University (Amendment) Bill, 2014.
While the University had been set up at Sonipat, the Bill brought today was passed to re-name the University after Bhim Rao Ambedkar.

The House also passed the Haryana Sikh Gurudwaras (Management) Bill, 2014, paving way for setting up of separate SGPC for the State.