Chandigarh: Senior Congress member Sukhpal Singh Khaira accused the Punjab govt of stalling his private member’s bill for restricting or banning non-Punjabi ownership of the state’s agricultural land “to preserve Punjab’s identity and maintain its demographic balance”.
He had submitted the bill on Jan 23, 2023, for introduction in the assembly, but now he claims that instead of presenting it promptly, speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan had referred it to the department of revenue to evaluate its “financial aspects”. Khaira alleged in a letter to Sandhwan that the AAP govt’s grounds for delaying the bill were “flimsy”, as its enactment would rather be “revenue-generating than loss-making”. TNN