During a special Labour Day session in the Punjab Assembly, the Opposition accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of arriving drunk. The House also witnessed the Congress members staging a walkout after a closed-door test to identify drunk legislators was demanded by the Opposition.
It was a Congress MLA who alleged that the Chief Minister was attending the proceedings drunk. The matter intensified when the Leader of the Opposition, Pratap Singh Bajwa, escalated the issue by demanding that all MLAs undergo a test to identify those under the influence of alcohol. His argument was that every member should be tested given the gravity of the allegation raised against the CM—the head of the state.
Later, Bhagwant Mann walked out of the House, which resulted in the Congress MLAs entering the well in protest before staging their own walkout. None of the BJP or Shiromani Akali Dal MLAs were present for the Labour Day session, local media reports said.
What did the CM do?
According to local reports, some of the Chief Minister's actions inside the Assembly on Friday were highly questionable. During the debate, Mann furiously objected to a statement made by the Opposition leader regarding the eight special sessions convened by the AAP government in the past four years. The CM jumped from his seat to rebuke Bajwa, asking him if the last special Assembly session on April 13—where the Jagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib (Amendment) Bill, 2026, was passed—was not significant enough.
“Was it not enough? Or maybe because you (Congress) never wanted to bring an anti-sacrilege law and even raised suspicion over the enactment of this Bill, you felt the session did not achieve much,” The Tribune quoted him as saying.
Then, he objected to a reporter of the Assembly walking in front of the Speaker to reach her seat and demanded action against her, the news report said.
However, all hell broke loose when Mann objected to the way Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira was sitting in the House. As per Mann, it was unbecoming of a member of the House for Khaira to be fiddling with his phone rather than participating in the debate, The Tribune said.
Later, when the Chief Minister was about to leave the House for a break, Khaira decided to question Mann's behaviour. Mann took notice of the development midway and returned to his seat to initiate a heated debate with Khaira. At this point, the requirement for an alcohol meter test was raised by Bajwa, the daily said.