New Delhi: Presenting the motion of confidence today, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that he is bringing a trust vote in his Council of Ministers to gain the confidence of the Assembly. The voting on the confidence motion will be held on Monday, the last day of the session.
AAP had recently claimed that at least 10 of its MLAs were approached by the BJP with an offer of Rs 25 crore each to topple the six-month-old government.
Amid the three adjournments before the motion and the walkout of two BJP MLAs and 15 Congress MLAs, the chief minister said he is bringing the trust vote to show that 2.75 crore Punjabis have faith in AAP.
“The purpose of bringing the trust vote is to expose their (citing BJP) designs to topple my government, as they have tried to do in other non-BJP ruled states,” he said, adding that AAP MLA were not for sale.
BJP MLAs staged a walkout before the motion was moved, to protest against the exclusion of him from the Business Advisory Committee meeting and “AAP’s refusal to thank PM for renaming Chandigarh airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh”. .
Earlier, Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit on 22 September withdrew his consent to allow the Mann government to hold a special session against “Operation Lotus”. When the government reconvened the session, the governor called it a question of legislative business. to bring to the session.
Despite the ups and downs before the session, Mann’s attack on the BJP was not as sharp as his attack on the Congress. While he accused the BJP of launching “Operation Lotus” to buy in or intimidating AAP MLAs, he took a dig at the Congress for being the “B team” of the BJP.
When the CM, who as the Leader of the House rose to speak on the motion of confidence, was opposed by Congress MLAs, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa said that he was not informed about the motion during the Business Advisory Committee meeting. went. Moved today.
“You are challenging the power of the governor,” he said.
Congress MLAs suspended the business of the House for about 40 minutes, saying that the motion could not be moved. As the commotion continued, the Speaker asked the marshals to escort the MLAs out. When he refused to leave, the House was adjourned thrice. They eventually walked out after being suspended for the day.
“Their (Congress MLA) silence and similar letters written by Bajwa and state BJP chief Ashwini Sharma to the governor prove that they do not care about democratic values and join hands with the BJP. Perhaps this is the reason why the electoral states of Himachal and Gujarat are not included in their ‘Bharat Jodi Yatra’.
Following the walkout of Congress MLAs, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema urged Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan to adjourn the discussion on the motion to the next meeting. This was announced later.
