CHANDIGARH: In yet another step towards having a new assembly secretariat for Haryana, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Wednesday wrote a demi-official (DO) letter to the central home ministry for the allotment of land.
Last month, speaker Gian Chand Gupta had written to the CM to take up this issue with the MHA and the Chandigarh administration. In his communication to the MHA, the CM spelled out the expected increase in the count of MLAs after delimitation. Assembly speaker Gupta said: “Since the UT administration must allot this land, the CM had to write to the MHA. We are hopeful of getting some land in Chandigarh.”
Denying that Haryana was giving up its rights on the current assembly building, the speaker said: He said: “This assembly is on a heritage site of Capitol Complex, so we’ll preserve it. We ask for a new premises as we may not be allowed to expand the existing complex. We expect to get land in Chandigarh and the rest depends on the UT administration and the MHA.”
The Haryana assembly’s strength is likely to go up to 118 or 122 from 90, and its Lok Sabha seats might go up to 14 from 10. Haryana assembly operates from the erstwhile Punjab Legislative Council hall. The space allotted to assembly secretariat is also less, so the galleries have been covered for extra room.
