Chandigarh, November 4 – On the First day of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr. Manohar Lal, who is also the Leader of the House, said that to maintain the dignity of the House, the Speaker of the Assembly should give an equal opportunity to the members of every political party to speak in the House and the members, along with their local demands, should also concentrate in the interest of the State and legislative work.

The Chief Minister was speaking during the first day of the 14th Haryana Vidhan Sabha session, after the house unanimously choose MLA Mr. Gian Chand Gupta as the new Speaker of the Haryana Legislative Assembly.

Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Dushyant Chautala, Leader of Opposition in Haryana Vidhan Sabha Mr. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, INLD’s Mr. Abhay Singh Chautala, Congress leaders Mrs. Kiran Chaudhary and Mr. Varun Chaudhary also congratulated Mr. Gian Chand Gupta for unanimously elected as the Speaker of the house. While, the Chief Minister hoped that the speaker should hold a special training programs for the first time elected 44 MLAs so that they can understand the proceedings of the House.

Mr. Manohar Lal said that Mr. Gian Chand Gupta has also served as the Mayor of Chandigarh. He was also the chairman of the Public Accounts and other Committees in the last assembly and has a special interest in handling legislative functions. Therefore, I proposed the resolution for him and the Chief Minister also thanked all the members for passing the resolution to make him speaker.

The Chief Minister apprised the House that sessions were held thrice in a year during the previous tenure whereas it used to be only two sessions earlier. Prior to 2014 of Haryana Vidhan Sabha, there were about 10 sittings in the year only, which was increased to 17 sittings in 2014 and a total of 15 sessions of the Vidhan Sabha were convened, which took 84 sittings.

The Chief Minister said that the Haryana Vidhan Sabha is one of the best legislative assemblies in the country and the legislators should raise issues of state interest along with the local demands of their region during the sessions.

The Chief Minister appealed to the new Speaker in the House Mr. Gian Chand Gupta that a copy of any bill which is to be passed during the session, should be sent to the members at least one day in advance so that the members could get enough time to study the issue and can speak on it during the discussion.

The Chief Minister made the House aware that Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Dushyant Chautala is the youngest of the 44 elected MLAs. He said that 30 MLAs have come again and 16 MLAs who have been MLAs and Ministers in the past. He said that Mr. Anil Vij and Dr. Raghuvir Singh Kadian have become MLAs for the sixth time, this time only 9 women have been elected, whereas in the previous assembly the number of women members was 13.

The Chief Minister made special mention of Sardar Sandeep Singh, a former member of the Indian hockey team, who has been elected from Pehowa for the first time.