Noisy scenes dominate second day of Punjab assembly session

Chandigarh: Noisy scenes were witnessed on the second day of the Punjab assembly session with Congress demanding dismissal of cabinet minister Fauja Singh Sarari for allegedly hatching a plan for extorting money, forcing the speaker to conduct the House amid constant sloganeering.
A purported audio clip of a conversation between Sarari and his close aide had gone viral earlier this month in which the duo was reportedly planning to extort money from contractors. Congress, which has been training its gun on the government soon after the audio had surfaced, raised the issue right at the onset of proceeding of the House during zero hour.

Terming it as a serious issue, the leader of opposition Partap Singh Bajwa demanded that the government should register a case against Sarari and dismiss him from the cabinet. He also asked the government to get the audio clip examined by a central laboratory. Bajwa accused the government of adopting double-standard approach to the corruption complaints against cabinet ministers.
“You sacked health minister Vijay Singla on the basis of an audio clip, which was never made public. Why you are adopting a different yardstick for Sarari even when the audio clip is in the public domain,” Bajwa questioned the government. He demanded that chief minister Bhagwant Mann should make a statement on the issue, which was second by the other members of Congress.
Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, in response, told the opposition that as the chief minister is not in the House, no one else can issue a statement on his behalf and CM will respond when he will be present in the House. The Congress MLAs, draped in banner highlighting the alleged wrongdoing of Sarari, charged into the well.