Amid a walkout by INLD members, Haryana Assembly on Monday adopted a breach of privilege motion against its chief and Leader of Opposition Om Prakash Chautala, the second within a week, for allegedly misleading the House by making a false statement.
The motion moved by ruling Congress member Bharat Bhushan Batra charged Mr. Chautala with “wilfully, knowingly and deliberately” misleading the House last week by stating that the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) had since 2005, when the Congress came to power, not carved out a single sector or acquired a single acre of land for development of urban estates in the state.
The motion was adopted by voice vote amidst protest by the opposition Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) whose members led by Mr. Chautala walked out of the House. Except for Mr. Chautala the other members returned to the House after some time.
Mr. Batra said Mr. Chautala stuck to his stand even though Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Surjewala had stated that the former Chief Minister’s statement was not based on facts.
Earlier last week, a privilege motion was moved by another ruling Congress member Kuldeep Sharma, who said Mr. Chautala had “wilfully, deliberately and knowingly” misled the House by making a false statement on imposition of VAT on salt. It was referred to Privileges Committee of the House.
Speaker H.S. Chatha also referred the second breach of privilege motion against Mr. Chautala to the Privileges Committee with a direction that the report be submitted at the first sitting of the next session.
