Chandigarh, March 17 (IANS) The newly constituted legislative assembly, whose three-day session began here on Thursday, was different as most of the security guards did not recognise a few new faces who arrived for the session.
The first of the session commenced with Pro-tem Speaker Inderbir Singh Nijjar administering the oath of office and secrecy to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann as Member of the Vidhan Sabha.
Breaking the convention, all women members were administered oath after the Chief Minister.
Thereafter, all other members were sworn in by the Speaker as members of the newly constituted Assembly district-wise in an alphabetical order.
The Chief Minister announced an anti-corruption helpline.
A day after resigning from the post of Punjab Congress chief, Navjot Singh Sidhu, who faced defeat from his stronghold Amritsar (East), supported Mann's crusade against corruption.
"The happiest man is the one from whom no one expects. Bhagwant Mann unfurls a new anti-mafia era in Punjab with a mountain of expectations, hope he rises to the occasion, brings back Punjab on the revival path with pro-people policies, best always," Sidhu said in a tweet.
Rising from the ashes like the phoenix, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) last week, in a maiden emphatic win, crushed the traditional players that ruled the border state of Punjab for over seven decades with its stunning victory largely by its greenhorns on 92 of the 117 seats of the legislative assembly.
The previous ruling Congress, which won 77 seats in 2017, managed to win only 18 seats with most of its stalwarts like Chief Minister Charanjit Channi and state party chief Sidhu facing humiliating defeat from their respective strongholds.
After the Model Code of Conduct came into force in the state for the Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections, enforcement teams have seized valuables worth Rs 23.8 crore in violation of code, besides confiscating unaccounted cash till January 12, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Punjab S. Karuna Raju said on Thursday.
Channi expressed regret while participating in a virtual meeting chaired by Prime Minister Modi with Chief Ministers and Lieutenant Governors/Administrators of states and UTs to review the prevailing Covid situation as well as the ongoing vaccination drive.
Unveiling the first set of plans in his Punjab Model with focus on resurrection of Punjab, Sidhu, in the absence of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and his Cabinet colleagues, told the media here: "Punjab Model is people's model, an effort to give a roadmap to return power to people."
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that he "personally" feels that alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab had cost the BJP heavily.
India on Tuesday recorded 1,68,063 new Covid cases, taking the total tally to 8,21,446. Although the fresh infections were 6.4 per cent less than Monday when the country logged 1,79,723, the weekly positivity rate has climbed to 8.85 per cent and the daily positivity rate has declined to 10.64 per cent. On the other hand, 4,461 Omicron cases were recorded from 28 states.
Delhi reported a 25 per cent surge in Covid-19 cases after recording 19,166 fresh cases. With this, the infection tally has climbed to 15,68,896. Meanwhile, the city has recorded 17 Covid deaths on the second consecutive day, pushing the death toll to 25,177.
