Chandigarh: The Punjab government will approach the Supreme Court of India on Monday seeking the apex court’s intervention in convening the Punjab budget session.
The move comes after Punjab governor Banwarilal Purohit refused to allow the Punjab government to convene the budget session of the assembly until it took legal advice on the tweet and letter written by chief minister Bhagwant Mann against the governor. Some decisions of the government.
Announcing the decision, Mann said, “Glimpse of world’s largest democracy… Go to Supreme Court to make mayor despite majority in Delhi…
Go to Supreme Court to make deputy mayor… Punjab Vidhan Sabha has to go to Supreme Court to conduct budget session… The search for democracy continues…’.
This clearly means that the government is in no mood to sort out differences with the governor, but has decided to “fight on”.
Earlier today in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar, while talking about the ongoing deadlock between the Chief Minister and the Governor of Punjab, Mann said that Raj Bhavans are becoming BJP headquarters in the country and the Governors are acting like BJP’s star campaigners. “In a democracy, it is the elected people who decide, not the elected people. We (referring to the Aam Aadmi Party) know how to fight our battles and we cannot be intimidated by the ED or the CBI.
It was last Thursday – the day the Aam Aadmi Party government held its first progressive Punjab Investors Summit – that the governor sent a letter to CM Mann, asking him to allow the budget session of the Punjab government on March 3. He has sought legal advice on the “highly derogatory and clearly unconstitutional tweet and letter” written by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in response to a letter sent earlier this month.
Sources in the ruling party have told The Tribune that though some of the chief minister’s confidants tried to persuade him to soften his stand against the governor, he decided to take the fight forward. Some efforts were also made by the government to please the Governor with the logistics for the wedding in his family scheduled for Monday. However, many of his cabinet colleagues and senior AAP leaders also believed that the government could not be seen bowing down under the pressure of the Governor. After the Governor sent the letter on Thursday evening, the party started exploring their legal options.
