Today (4 March) marks the second day of the budget session of the Punjab government where Governor Banwari Lal Purohit’s address, which was cut short yesterday was the first thing to be discussed. As soon as CM Bhagwant Mann stood up to speak, he gifted a lock-and-key envelope to Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan saying that “telling the truth will cause opposition to run away”. Opposition party leader Pratap Singh Bajwa expressed strong protest regarding this following a huge uproar fell in the house over this issue. There was a fierce war of words between the CM and Bajwa for about half an hour following which the Speaker adjourned the House for 15 minutes.
Earlier on March 1, on the first day of the session, Congress MLAs had not allowed the Governor to read the full budget speech. The Governor had to end the speech early by reading just the first and last lines. Congress had created a lot of ruckus on the first day regarding the farmers' movement due to which the assembly proceedings ended in just 13 minutes.
As soon as the assembly proceedings started again, the opponents said that first lock the House. They created a ruckus regarding this. CM Bhagwant Mann said that they need an excuse to go out and started raising slogans of 'speaker saheb tala lgao’ (Speaker Saheb lock the room) inside the Assembly.
As soon as the second day of budget proceedings began, CM Bhagwant Mann gifted the lock and key to the Speaker. He said that the opposition did not allow the Governor to speak first now if he speaks, then they will run away. This led to an escalation in the ruckus with Bajwa touching the issue of farmers following which Congress started creating ruckus. Bajwa said that talk on the issue of farmers. An uproar started in the house regarding this.
Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said that the statement of Chandigarh BJP chief Jatinder Malhotra has shown what ‘the reality of BJP is’. He claimed that their mentality is against the farmers and it would have been better if ‘Jakhar Saheb’ had gone to Delhi along with his MLAs. He said that he (Jakhar) should have gone to Delhi and staged a protest against the Central Government and not outside the Assembly.
BJP's Punjab President Sunil Jakhar said that the farmers of Punjab are getting MSP while other states are not. Sunil Jakhar said that I stand with the farmers. He also said that he “will leave BJP”, but first the Punjab Government has to tell what is their stand regarding MSP on 23 crops.
Following the ruckus. Speaker Kultar Sandhwan had adjourned the assembly proceedings for 15 minutes.