The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Friday, March 22, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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SAD not to contest posts of Speaker, Dy Speaker
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 21
The Shiromani Akali Dal headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal will not contest the election of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. The election of the Speaker is scheduled to be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

For a number of journalists, covering the session of the Punjab Assembly today proved to be an irritating and humiliating experience. The session started amidst unprecedented security. The police had put up a special naka at MLA Chowk, about 1 km short of the Vidhan Sabha complex. Most of the vehicles were subjected to a search there. Again another naka was put up at the entry to the complex.

Yet again, securitymen were positioned with hand-held metal detectors at the entrance meant for visitors, guests and journalists to the Vidhan Sabha building. Securitymen moved metal detectors over the turbans of journalists in a most irritating and humiliating manner.

One journalist was asked to deposit his pen with the securitymen. When he replied that in that case it would be better for him to return home, the securitymen returned the pen to him. Almost the same treatment was meted out to those who had come as guests of MLAs and other VIPs to be in the visitors’ galleries.

Dr Kewal Krishan, a veteran Congressman who has been elected to the Assembly a number of times, will be the Congress candidate for the office of Speaker. Prof Darbari Lal, a Congress MLA from Amritsar, is tipped for the office of Deputy Speaker. However, only the election of the Speaker is on the agenda of the House tomorrow.

Dr Kewal Krishan today administered the oath to newly elected MLAs as the pro-tem Speaker.

The leader of the Akali Dal Legislature Party, Mr Badal, said today that his party had decided not to put up any candidate to maintain the tradition of electing the Speaker unanimously. He said his party would also not put up a candidate for the office of Deputy Speaker.

Mr Balwinder Singh Bhunder, MLA and general secretary of the SAD, said the party was all for upholding democratic traditions and the dignity of the office of Speaker.

When asked whether the Congress had so far conveyed to the SAD, which was the principal Opposition party in the Assembly, whom it (the Congress) wanted to put up as its candidate for the office of Speaker, Mr Bhunder replied in the negative. “When our party came to power last time, the Congress was consulted on the issue of the speakership and the decision on the candidate was also conveyed to it well in advance”, Mr Bhunder said. “It is up to the Congress now to carry on that tradition”, he added.

The SAD has 41 members and its ally, the BJP, 3. Besides, there are nine Independent MLAs and one from the CPI, which is an alliance partner of the Congress. The Congress will have to face one of the strongest Oppositions in the House in the past three decades.