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.
The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking removal of the then Delhi Police Commissioner S N Srivastava from his post and punishment for police officials who allegedly failed to discharge their duty during the farmers' tractor rally in the national capital on January 26 (Republic Day).
The West Bengal government is planning to bring a resolution in the Assembly against the extension of jurisdiction of the BSF in the state. After Punjab, West Bengal will be the second state to bring such a resolution.
The BJP is still the favourite to win the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh next year but it is now losing 108 seats as the Samajwadi Party rises rapidly, while in Uttarakhand and Punjab, Congress is making a strong comeback, as per the ABP-CVoter-IANS 5-State Snap Poll.
The awards were presented by the President at the civil investiture ceremony held in two parts, of 45 minutes each in the morning and evening, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
According to police, the injured were rushed to a government hospital, which referred 13 victims to Jodhpur hospital as their condition was critical.Fire brigades from Pachpadra, Balotra, and Barmer refinery were pressed into service to douse the flames.
Amid crisis, the Congress in poll-bound Punjab is all set to welcome an MLA from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who has resigned from the party. Sidhu has been demanding the replacement of Deol, who had represented former Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini in cases related to the 2015 sacrilege and subsequent police firing on protesters.
