The first session of the 14th Legislative Assembly of Himachal Pradesh began on a stormy note on Wednesday at Tapovan, Dharamshala in Kangra district.

On the very first day of the session, before the oath of the MLAs, the opposition BJP created a ruckus in the first house on the issue of closure of about 900 institutions by the newly formed Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu’s government that had been opened by the previous BJP government.

The opposition staged a walk out of the House after taking the oath.

Earlier, Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur had raised the issue of de-notification of institutions opened by the state government during the last year of the previous government’s tenure as soon as the proceedings of the House began.

He said that the oath of the MLAs has taken 24-25 days, but the government even before that already started a series of de-notification of institutions opened during the tenure of the previous government.

Thakur said that never in the history of Himachal Pradesh such a kind of vendetta has ever been witnessed.

Blaming the Sukhu government for insulting the public mandate, he said that the cabinet has taken the decision to open new institutes in the state and only the cabinet can take the decision to close these institutes, however the cabinet has not yet been formed in the state.

In such a situation, previously open institutions cannot be de-notified under the rules, he said, adding that the government should issue orders to reopen all the de-notified institutions and only after re-reviewing them, a decision should be taken to stop running them.

The previous government did not open any institution without creation of posts, he claimed, accusing the incumbent government of de-notifying institutions without much thought which was unfortunate.

All through this, there was a lot of noise in the House and on many occasions the opposition also raised slogans against the de-notification of the institute.

The pro-tem speaker of the assembly Chandra Kumar Chaudhary advised the members to remain calm and exercise restraint.

He said that today is a very auspicious occasion and 23 members have reached the house after being elected for the first time.

“In such a situation, the opposition should cooperate in the swearing-in and after that they should raise their issues,” he said.

Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu also urged the opposition to cooperate in the swearing-in and then discuss the decisions of the government, after which the swearing-in of the newly elected members started in the House.

Soon after the swearing-in was over, the opposition raised the issue again. This led to uproar again in the house and after some time the entire opposition walked out raising slogans.