‘No land allotted to Haryana for separate Legislative Assembly’: Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria douses fire

On November 13, BJP person and erstwhile Haryana Speaker Gian Chand Gupta announced that the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had granted biology clearance for onshore offered by the Haryana authorities to the Chandigarh medication successful speech for onshore designated for a caller Vidhan Sabha gathering complex. Gupta said this improvement could pave the mode for aboriginal operation of the building.

The BJP leader’s connection evoked beardown reactions from leaders of each governmental parties successful Punjab. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Opposition Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and adjacent authorities BJP main Sunil Jakhar had spoken against the “attempt to conception abstracted Vidhan Sabha for Haryana” that is being construed arsenic a precursor to found Haryana’s close connected Chandigarh.

During erstwhile Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s regime, Haryana sought onshore from the Centre to conception a abstracted Legislative Assembly successful Chandigarh. Following this, the Chandigarh medication decided to allocate 10 acres of premier onshore connected IT Park Road adjacent the railway presumption for Haryana’s Assembly complex.

In return, Haryana offered 12 acres successful Panchkula, adjacent to the 123-acre Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park developed by the Chandigarh Housing Board. However, the onshore offered by Panchkula did not person biology clearance. On November 13, Haryana claimed it had obtained the biology clearance that would assistance commencement the operation of the Vidhan Sabha complex.

Haryana’s assertion got each governmental parties, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), and farmers’ unions to involvement the assertion astatine Chandigarh, stating that it rightfully belongs to Punjab. This has erstwhile again renewed the long-standing dispute.

Leader of Opposition successful Punjab Assembly and elder Congress person Partap Singh Bajwa had called the determination an affront to Punjab’s rights, describing it arsenic a superior encroachment connected the state’s humanities claims implicit Chandigarh. He added that this determination was an onslaught connected Punjab’s autonomy, arguing that Chandigarh, developed connected Punjab’s land, had ever been integral to the state’s identity.

“The Union authorities has continually trampled upon Punjab’s autonomy. Any determination to make a abstracted legislative abstraction for Haryana successful Chandigarh undermined Punjab’s long-standing transportation to the Union territory. We volition not tolerate this decision,’’ helium said.

SAD person Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said that the Union government’s determination was illegal, unconstitutional and a sedate usurpation of the Punjab Reorganisation Act 1966.

“The SAD volition not let immoderate specified evil plan to win astatine immoderate cost”, helium said.

Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar opposed the Centre’s determination and sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s involution to cancel it. In a station connected X, Jakhar said the Centre’s determination to allot the onshore would “emotionally wounded Punjabis arsenic Chandigarh being the superior of Punjab is not simply a (piece of) land.

“It’s a substance of heavy feeling for the radical of the state. Prime Minister Modi has made assorted attempts to heal the wounds that the authorities has witnessed recently. The determination to allot onshore for Haryana volition wounded the PM’s attempts to uplift Punjab’s spiritual and societal feelings,” Jakhar wrote.

A delegation of Punjab ministers led by Finance Minister Harpal Cheema besides submitted a memorandum opposing the determination to Kataria.