Heated exchanges between BJP, Cong members in Hry Assembly

The Haryana Assembly on Tuesday witnessed acrimonious exchanges between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress benches over many issues including one related to incidents of violence during reservation agitation in the state in February 2016.

There were heated exchanges between the treasury benches and Congress MLAs when BJP MLA Aseem Goel, who opened the Budget debate in the House, trained guns on the opposition members telling them they were responsible when "Haryana burnt" during incidents of violence which broke out during the Jat reservation agitation.

"You are responsible for this, you hatched the conspiracy," Goel alleged during his one-hour speech on the Budget.

Former Minister and Congress MLA Geeta Bhukkal took a swipe at the ruling BJP MLAs, saying on every issue they put the blame on previous Congress government and make "baseless allegations".

Pointing towards Congress benches, Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar said, "Rohtak, Jhajjar, Beri burnt (during the February 2016 agitation) because of you. Everyone knows who burnt Haryana," said Dhankar, who drew support from his ministerial colleague Manish Grover.

Grover claimed that some Congress members could not tolerate when he became MLA from Rohtak in 2014 assembly polls.

"People are waiting to teach you lesson for your misdeeds," Dhankar said.

Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Bhukkal, Raghubir Singh Kadian, Anand Singh Dangi, Karan Singh Dalal and Shakuntala Khatak of the Congress told the BJP members not to level "baseless charges".

As BJP members continued with the offensive, Kadian demanded a CBI probe into the allegations made by the party in connection with incidents of violence during the reservation agitation in 2016, which left over 30 people dead and scores injured.

"That is the only way to find out who burnt Haryana," said Kadian.

Kadian at the outset of his speech, raised objection over "non-tabling of CAG reports in the Assembly before the Budget debate opened".

"Past precedent is that CAG reports are tabled before the budget debate gets underway. But that has not been done this time," he said.

Kadian found support other Congress and INLD members as well, who claimed that CAG report had not been tabled as per the precedence.

However, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said the opposition MLAs had not checked their bags given to them after Finance Minister Abhimanyu's Budget speech in the Assembly on Monday.

However, Hooda told Sharma, "we have checked our bags, these are statistical reports, economic survey document, but CAG report is missing".

"We know that elections are near and you have things to hide, which is why you have not followed the precedence of tabling CAG report before the budget debate," Hooda told the ruling BJP benches.

Congress and INLD MLAs also took objection to ruling BJP member opening the budget debate, claiming that the government has not followed precedence in this too and this debate is always started by an opposition member.

When Leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala participated in the Budget debate, Congress' Geeta Bhukkal took exception to presence of very few members of the ruling party.

"Leader of Opposition is speaking, but chief minister is not present, the Finance Minister has also gone away, even in the officers' gallery most officers are not present," said Bhukkal.

Earlier during the Zero Hour, Finance Minister Abhimanyu and Independent MLA Jai Prakash had heated exchange when the latter claimed that the government has not taken care of a martyr's dependents, who hail from a village in Gulha.

"I have served in the armed forces, I know pain of the soldiers. But we don't do dirty politics like you do," said Abhimanyu hitting back at Jai Prakash.

Abhimanyu also said that during the past four-and-a-half years the state government has given jobs to 273 dependents of martyrs.

In the Zero Hour, Congress Legislature Party leader Kiran Chowdhary said five of her Calling Attention Notices pertaining to various issues that she wanted to raise had been rejected by the Speaker without assigning any reason.