Cong stages walkout from Punjab assembly

Opposition Congress members today staged a walkout from the state assembly demanding reservation for people belonging to SC/BC communities in contractual appointments in government jobs.
Congress legislator Charanjit Singh Channi moved a calling attention notice drawing attention of the House towards recruitment on contractual basis without giving reservation to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Backward Classes (BCs) community in various government departments.
However, when state's Welfare of SCs/BCs minister Gulzar Singh Ranike stood up to give a reply to the attention notice, the Congress members started sloganeering while speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal called for the next item on agenda of the day's proceedings.

Irked by it, the opposition Congress members went into the Well of the House and staged a noisy demonstration before marching put of the assembly.
However, the opposition members returned to the House within 15 minutes after their walkout.
In their absence, parliamentary affairs minister Madan Mohan Mittal described the opposition members act as "condemnable" saying that Congress legislators have used "derogatory words" against the governor and the chief minister during the on-going session.

"Congress members are not following rules of the assembly," he asserted while saying the Congress members' walkout during the governor's address was against the parliamentary system.

Urging the chair to "control" the opposition members, he said that "everyday they raise Majithia's issue (cropping of Revenue Minister Bikram Singh name in the money laundering and multi-crore synthetic drug case)".
Majithia stood up and lashed out at Congress for playing "divisive politics" for raising queries on issues on the basis of caste and religion.
Earlier, during the zero hour, the Congress members came into the well of the House for a brief period seeking proper procurement of food grains from farmers and early payment for their sugarcane dues.