AAP MLAs on Day 1 of the two-day special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, in Chandigarh on Monday. (Express photo by Kamleshwar Singh)A ‘request’ by the ruling AAP to its legislators on Monday not to attack their own government in the Vidhan Sabha seemingly had no effect with the MLAs questioning the ministers and hitting out at the dispensation during Question Hour and Zero Hour.A two-day special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha commenced Monday. During the day, in the intervening period between obituary references and the second sitting of the session, the ruling AAP in floor strategy meeting schooled its MLAs not to corner party government in the House.The meeting was chaired by AAP state president Aman Arora who told legislators to counter the Opposition and not embarrass the government by questioning the ministers, a source present in the meeting said.While several MLAs are learnt to have expressed their displeasure to the party leadership during the strategy meeting itself, a few of them raised the issue of “unresponsive officials”, “bad condition of roads”, “delay in formulating policy of providing a passage to petrol pumps on the highways” and “delay in issuing of driving licences and registration certificates of vehicles” in the meeting.The source said, “The meeting was held to provide a vent to these MLAs, who have been upset as they were not being heard. Several of them said the works in their constituencies were not being done and they were not able to showcase the works to their electorate. They said they have no place to express their grievances. They told said that they (the to leadership) do not allow them to speak anywhere.”Later, during the Question Hour and Zero Hour, the AAP MLAs raised several issues. Rajpura MLA Neena Mittal, during the Zero Hour, questioned the government for not being able to formulate a policy on passage to be given to petrol pumps on highways. “It has been two and a half of the government still the policy has not been formulated. As many as 70 petrol pump owners have been waiting.”During Question Hour, Mohali MLA Kulwant Singh said he has written seven letters to the Housing Department for providing space to 350 kiosk owners in Mohali,— with first one on March 15, 2022, the first day of the AAP government — but never got a reply.Story continues below this ad“After our government came to power, I wrote the first letter on the matter on May 15, 2022 and followed it up with six more. But no reply was received to any letter. We write letters to departments but we get no reply. The custom of replying to letters has either been done away with or it was never there,” he said.Dera Bassi MLA Kuljit Singh Randhawa questioned the government on bad state of roads in his constituency. He also raised the issue of the closure of the main highway at Shambhu border amid the ongoing farmers’ protest and said the roads in villages have been damaged due to heavy traffic being diverted and these needed urgent repairs.Responding to his question, Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian said that there were 615-km long stretch of roads in his constituency but these had not approached the deadline of repair. However, Randhawa insisted that the roads should be repaired. To this, Khuddian said they were raising a loan of Rs 1800 crore from NABARD and they will soon carry out repair work.This is not for the first time that the ruling AAP legislators have cornered their own government on the floor of the House.Story continues below this adDuring the session in September last year, party MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra had cited huge pendency of applications for mutation of land record with patwaris across the state despite payment of the prescribed fee at mutation centres.Another AAP MLAm Manwinder Singh Giaspura, had people looking to get names added or deleted in ration cards were facing lots of harassment.© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Punjab AAPPunjab Vidhan Sabha