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.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, representing the farmers' group, submitted before a bench headed by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul that road blockade would end, if permission is granted to continue the protest either at Ramlila Maidan or Jantar Mantar.
Farmers protesting on the Ghazipur border at Delhi for the last 11 months against the three farm laws enacted by the Centre last year, have started to open the service lane to ease the traffic. They said it is the police who have closed the road and not them. Farmers belonging to the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) on Thursday started removing the tents built on the service road to start the traffic movement.
Two days after announcing to launch his own political outfit to serve the interests of the people, two-time Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday slammed AICC general secretary Harish Rawat, saying the party has damaged its own interests by not trusting him and giving the party into the hands of an 'unstable person' like Navjot Sidhu.
The data comes on a day when India reached the milestone of 100 crore vaccinations, and demonstrates that lack of vaccine hesitancy has played a big role in achieving this number.
Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, representing Singh, submitted his client has been in jail for the past two years, and added that his custody is not required, as two charge sheets have already been filed.
Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for delay in recording statements of witnesses before a judicial magistrate in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, where eight persons were killed, and also told the state government to dispel the impression that it is dragging its feet in the matter.
