Haryana Cabinet recommends dissolution of House

The Haryana Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini here today, recommended the dissolution of the 14th Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

The Cabinet recommendation will now be sent to Governor Bandaru Dattatreya for his nod. He will then request the CM to act as a caretaker Chief Minister till a new government is elected. Sources said the Governor is not in station today. This recommendation will be sent to him tomorrow when he returns. Article 174 (2)(b) of the Constitution of India gives the Governor of a state the power to dissolve the state’s legislative Assembly.

The Tribune was the first to report yesterday that a Cabinet meeting had been summoned and the dissolution of the House was on the cards.

The dissolution of the House was necessitated because the government could not hold the “mandatory” Vidhan Sabha session within six months of the last session.

While the last session was held on March 13, after Saini replaced the then Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the next session should have been held under the constitutional provisions by September 12, before the six-month gap lapses. However, the Assembly elections were announced ahead of schedule much to the surprise of the Saini government. Today, at the meeting, which lasted over 20 minutes, the Chief Minister tabled the recommendation of dissolving the House which was accepted by the Cabinet. The ministers of the Saini Cabinet were also given the option of attending the meeting online as some of them expressed their inability to make it to Chandigarh.

Also, the meeting was held late in the evening because the Chief Minister himself was travelling to different constituencies to accompany the party candidates for the filing of their nomination papers. Most of the ministers, too, filed their papers today.

Some of these ministers who expressed their inability to travel to the capital have been refused a party ticket in this Assembly election by the BJP. The ministers present at the meeting included Kanwar Pal Gujjar, Aseem Goyal and Subhash Sudha among others.

Also, since tomorrow, September 12, is the last date to file nominations, most of those who could not make it to today’s meeting were occupied with prior programmes in their constituencies.