Chandigarh:

The Punjab Assembly on Monday witnessed chaotic scenes during the discussion on the state budget when Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann engaged in a heated argument with the Congress leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa following the former’s request to the Governor to “lock” the opposition in the assembly.

Before the beginning of the discussion on the budget, Chief Minister Mann handed over an envelope to the governor, stating that he had brought a gift for him. The envelope contained a lock and a key.

The Chief Minister, then, asked the governor to lock the opposition inside the assembly, so that they could not “run away” during the discussion, which later triggered a heated argument between LoP Bajwa and the Chief Minister.

#WATCH | Chandigarh: Amid the heated argument between Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann and Congress MLA and LoP Partap Singh Bajwa in the state assembly, CM Bhagwant Mann says, “Who does Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi sit with? With me. Have you ever sat with them? On one hand, you are… pic.twitter.com/xilZG9L5qM

— ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2024

An agitated chief minister Mann asked Bajwa to tell the central leadership of the Congress not to “bother” giving seats to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

“Who does Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi sit with? With me. Have you ever sat with them? On the one hand, you are making agreements (on seat sharing) with us. Go and tell them (Sonia and Rahul Gandhi) not to give Kurukshetra, Delhi and Gujarat (Lok Sabha) seats for us,” Mr Mann said.

Later, the house was adjourned for 15 minutes.

LoP Partap Singh Bajwa, while speaking to the reporters, said, “The Chief Minister said that the Congress does not know how to listen hence the doors of the Assembly should be locked from inside… Are we labourers? We have not seen such a weak Speaker… The CM used inappropriate words for everyone.

“When the heated argument was going on, the Chief Minister asked me if I would contest against him in the elections. I told him that from wherever he will contest from Punjab, I will stand against him. I have accepted his challenge openly,” he added.

The AAP and the Congress, allies in the INDIA bloc, have decided to go for a ‘friendly fight’ in Punjab, given the latter is the opposition in the state.

Earlier, the two parties closed their seat-sharing deal in Delhi, Haryana, Goa, Chandigarh and Gujarat.

As part of the agreement reached between the ruling party in Delhi and the grand old party, Congress will contest 3 of the 7 Lok Sabha seats in the national capital while the AAP will field candidates in the remaining 4 constituencies.

In neighbouring Gujarat, the Congress will contest 24 of 26 Lok Sabha seats, leaving the remaining 2–Bharuch and Bhavnagar– for the AAP.

In Haryana, the Congress will contest 8 of the 9 Lok Sabha seats while the AAP will contest the lone seat–Kurukshetra.

The two parties also reached a consensus on the grand old party contesting the prized Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat.

As part of the seat-sharing deal, the Congress will contest both the Lok Sabha seats in Goa.

The Lok Sabha polls are expected to be held in April-May this year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party on Feb. 27 said that no provincial Assembly session can be called without notifying the reserved seats, a day after the Assemblies of Punjab and Sindh were summoned and the Chief Ministers were sworn-in.

Speaking to the media in Islamabad, the 71-year-old Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party leader, Barrister Gohar Khan, said the new provincial Assemblies should be convened after all the members of the House are notified, the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

“The Punjab [Assembly] session was carried out in an illegal manner. The Sindh Assembly session was carried out illegally. If the National Assembly session is called, that will also be illegal because the assemblies should be convened after all the members of the House are notified,” he said.

He urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to notify the reserved seats for the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), with which his party has entered a formal agreement.

Mr. Khan’s party could not directly participate in the February 8 general elections due to the non-allotment of its iconic electoral symbol — the cricket bat. To receive the party’s share of reserved seats, candidates of the PTI — who fought as independents and won the elections — formally joined the SIC.

The SIC is an alliance of Islamic political and religious parties in the Muslim-majority country, representing followers of the school of Sunni Islam.

The Election Commission of Pakistan will hold an open hearing on Feb. 26 of the PTI-backed SIC’s plea seeking the allocation of its share of reserved seats in the national and provincial Assemblies.

On Feb. 26, President Alvi rejected a summary from the caretaker Parliamentary Affairs Ministry to summon the first session of the newly elected National Assembly session on February 29.

Mr. Alvi maintained that all reserved seats be allocated before the summoning of the session in which newly-elected members of the National Assembly will take oath.

After the denial by Mr. Alvi — a close aide of PTI founder Khan and a former senior member of his party — National Assembly outgoing Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf decided to convene the lower House of Parliament session on February 29.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Assembly session on Feb. 26 saw the election of Maryam, the 50-year-old senior vice president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, as the first-ever woman Chief Minister of Pakistan’s most populous Province.

Later in the day in Sindh, senior Pakistan Peoples Party leader Murad Ali Shah was reelected as the new Chief Minister of the Province after securing 112 votes out of 148 total cast during voting for the coveted position.

Though independents backed by the PTI won majority seats at the National Assembly in the February 8 general election, the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have agreed on a power-sharing deal to form a new coalition government, which may effectively end Mr. Khan’s chances of returning to power.

Mr. Khan’s party has rejected the attempts by the PML-N and the PPP to form a coalition government, warning that robbing its public endorsement by the “mandate thieves” will result in the worst political instability.

Independent candidates — a majority backed by the PTI party — won 93 National Assembly seats.

The PML-N won 75 seats, while the PPP came third with 54 seats. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) has 17 seats.

Imran Khan’s party to call ‘parallel’ Punjab Assembly session to elect CM, Speaker: report

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party plans to call a “parallel” Punjab Assembly session to elect the Chief Minister, Speaker and Deputy Speaker, claiming that newly-elected chief Minister Maryam Nawaz was in the House on “a stolen mandate”, a media report said on Feb. 27.

Ms. Nawaz, the 50-year-old senior Vice-President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, made history by becoming the first-ever woman Chief Minister of Pakistan’s most populous Punjab Province after receiving 220 votes.

She defeated Rana Aftab of 71-year-old Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-backed Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), who received no votes as his party boycotted the election.

Former-cricketer-turned-politician Khan’s PTI party made a call for a “parallel” Punjab Assembly on Monday after claiming a strength of 250 members, including reserved seats for women and minorities, the Dawn newspaper reported.

To win the Chief Minister’s election, a candidate needs to win the backing of the majority, which is 187 members in the House that currently has 327 seats.

Addressing a press conference, PTI’s central leader, Shaukat Basra, claimed that more than half of the elected Punjab Assembly members, including the newly elected Chief Minister Maryam, were in the House on “a stolen mandate”.

He claimed that Ms. Nawaz was defeated by a PTI-backed candidate, Mehr Sharafat, in Lahore’s PP-159 constituency, according to the report.

Asserting that the results were rigged to ensure the new Punjab Chief Minister’s victory, Mr. Basra said that Ms. Nawaz “won the election on February 9 instead of February 8”.

“PML-N leaders used to say they struck a deal with powers that be, but they failed to strike a deal with the people of Pakistan,” he said.

“This rigged election will result in anarchy,” the PTI leader said.

Claiming that the establishment was still requesting PTI founder Khan to become Prime Minister, Mr. Basra said, “But Mr. Khan is determined that the establishment should ensure the mandate given by the people of Pakistan to PTI-backed candidates be returned,” he said.

Separately, the party criticised Ms. Nawaz’s election as the Chief Minister of the politically crucial Punjab Province and said all democratic and constitutional norms were trampled to elect her.

In a statement, the party’s spokesperson claimed that police “imposed a curfew” outside the assembly to prevent PTI’s members and the nominee for Chief Minister from entering the assembly.

It claimed that the sanctity of the Punjab Assembly was violated by “stealing the public mandate” to bring a “defeated woman” to power.

The spokesperson said the people of Punjab “would not tolerate an insult to their mandate”, according to the report.

At least 103 lawmakers of the PTI-backed SIC staged a walkout after the SIC nominee for Chief Minister, Aftab, was not permitted to speak at the point of order.

The newly-elected Speaker, Malik Ahmad Khan, eventually moved forward with the proceedings to elect a new leader of the House after efforts to bring back the boycotting lawmakers went in vain.

The PML-N clinched both speaker and deputy speaker offices in the Punjab Assembly.

In a marathon session of the Punjab Assembly on Saturday, the lawmakers elected PML-N leader Malik Ahmad Khan as the custodian of the House and Zaheer Iqbal Channar as his deputy.

The PML-N won 137 seats, while independents backed by 71-year-old Khan’s PTI party won 113 in the Punjab Assembly. Separately, 20-odd independents, not PTI-backed, have already joined the PML-N.

Punjab is the most populous Province of Pakistan, home to 120 million people.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann speaks during the ongoing session of Punjab Legislative Assembly, in Chandigarh on October 3, 2022.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday announced increasing the price of sugarcane to ₹380 per quintal from the existing ₹360 per quintal.

He announced a hike in SAP (State agreed price) of sugarcane on the floor of the Punjab Assembly on the concluding day of its brief session.

Also read | No viable options: farmers in Punjab forced to persist with paddy, go against the grain

In August 2021, the then Congress government had announced a ₹50 per quintal hike in SAP of sugarcane to ₹360 per quintal.

Mr. Mann said farmers will get an additional ₹20 per quintal under SAP of sugarcane as compared to last year.

With this decision, the State government will spend an additional ₹200 crore annually to benefit the farmers.

Mr. Mann said the farmers of the State eagerly want to adopt sugarcane crop under crop diversification, but they are hesitant for it due to lack of adequate price and timely payment of the crop.

At present, sugarcane is cultivated on just 1.25 lakh hectares of land in Punjab, while the total crushing capacity of sugar mills was around 2.50 lakh hectares. This is why the State government has decided to enhance the price to supplement the income of farmers, he said.

Data | How States compare in agri-production: Punjab and Haryana dominate

Informing the House about the present status of the payments, the Chief Minister said the cooperative sugar mills have already paid the entire dues of the farmers but two private sugar mills have not paid the dues yet.

He informed that the owners of these mills have fled from the country, adding that the state government has already initiated the process to confiscate their assets to pay the pending dues of the farmers.