Right from the beginning, the vocal comrade had been maintaining that the two day session did not provide sufficient time to raise public grievances before the government. The voluminous Bills for passage were handedover to the MLAs only yesterday, while the annual reports of various corporations were placed before the house today itself. Be it the issue of development of his constituency which also lacked drinking water facilities, to the bad condition of roads besides the government's lackadiasical handling of the panchayat elections and the plight of farmers, Arshi made his point well.

Training coupled with experience of having been elected twice to the state assembly, Arshi shrewdly decided to oppose the sine die motion moved by the treasury benches and consequently got more time to speakout his mind. In veiw of the majority enjoyed by the ruling benches, the motion was though passed, but not without Arshi making his point.

He said,``I oppose the sine die motion because the opposition's grievances go unheard normally and it is the only platform where the state administration could be made to listen.'' He asked that if the session was called off, when would the oppostion get time to raise burning issues like the proposed hike in petrol prices, taxing of foodgrains, financial crisis faced by the state, ongoing spat between the Tohra and Badal camps and irregularities in the panchayat elections. Hence, he demanded that the session of the house should be extended or at least assured to be recalled after a week or so.

On the Congress front, after the adjournment motion moved by Chaudhary Jagjit Singh was disallowed by the Speaker, the majority of party members did not react. It was only Ramesh Chander Dogra who, off and on, was on his feet showing a combat spirit.

The Congress members appeared to have got it all wrong when they said that the tax on foodgrains would burden the farmers. Captain Kanwaljit Singh, the finance minister had to clarify that the tax would be on the buyer. And since most of the foodgrain produced in Punjab was bought by the Food Corporation of India, the money would come from the central agency.

From the treasury benches, those who drew attention of the press gallery were the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Finance Minister Captain Kanwaljit Singh, Food and Supplies Minister Madan Mohan Mittal and Manpreet Badal.Manpreet's usage of an urdu couplet, while supporting the infrastructure Bill was very well received. Also, he exhibited a balanced mix of thought and words. Sitting with him Ravi Inder too spoke today seeking a clarification from the Speaker.

A ticklish situation was created for the Congress when Captain Kanwaljit caught its leader Chaudhary Jagjit Singh by the horns. He invited the leader of the Opposition to relinquish all the perks like the official car, kothi and telephone besides other facilities, if was genuinely talking of adopting austerity measures. The Congressmen retorted by stressing at the proverbial,``pehle app, pehle app.''