Haryana Congress’ fixation with Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader and former chief minister of the state, Om Prakash Chautala remained the central point of the three-day monsoon session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha.

Vicious allegations and counter allegations flew thick and fast. But the cherished wish of the Congressmen to chide and deride Chautala and make him feel humbled and humiliated in the same House in which he had ruled once, could not be fulfilled. Vidhan Sabha Speaker, Dr Raghubir Singh Kadian ruled that the discussions on the Privileges Committee report will continue in the next session.

Congressmen eagerly awaited the presentation of the Privileges Committee report by Chautala’s bete noire, Karan Singh Dalal, in which it was recommended that Chautala be reprimanded in the House for his disorderly and disrespectful conduct. Sensing the revengeful mood of the Congressmen, Chautala chose to remain away from the Vidhan Sabha for most of the time, not giving any opportunity to the Congressmen to vent their ire.

“The House has the power to send police to bring Chautala to the Assembly for the reprimand if he tries the same stay away during the discussion on the Privileges Committee report,’’ said Dalal.

In Chautala’s absence his deputy, Dr Sushil Indora had to face the wrath of the treasury benches. Indora spent his time staging walkouts along with other INLD members at regular intervals to show solidarity with his leader, even named a number of times by the Speaker. INLD’s antics did help in grabbing media headlines. It was unfortunate that the precious time of the House and the huge expenditure that goes along with it, was wasted. Very few questions on policy matters were asked. Most of the questions related to trivial issues, or limited to needs and demands of a small area in some particular constituency. Petty politics took the better of discussions on even the supplementary demands.

The INLD leaders often complained that they were not given proper chance to put forth their views and staged walk outs.

“They have not got any worthwhile suggestion to make and as usual they have come unprepared to the House,’’ said Randeep Singh Surjewala, Parliamentary Affairs Minister. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda too chided the behaviour of the INLD legislators.

Although 12 bills were passed in the Vidhan Sabha this time, two of the bills pertaining to a check on the property dealers and on entry tax were very important. As expected no bill on the issue of a separate SGPC for Haryana was presented in the House.