Chandigarh: The Centre’s recent move to allot land to Haryana to have its separate Assembly building in Chandigarh has whipped up a fresh political storm with all the political parties of Punjab joining hands to protest against it.

Notably, Chandigarh has a unique status of being the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana since 1966 when Haryana was carved out of Punjab, and is also a union territory (UT). And as per the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, both Punjab and Haryana also share the same civil secretariat building where the offices of both the chief ministers, ministers and other top bureaucrats are situated, the assembly building in the Capitol Complex and the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

However, while Haryana has been flagging, since the past several years, the acute dearth of the space in the existing state Assembly, hence the need for a separate Assembly building, Punjab objects to it stating that any concession to Haryana is perceived in Punjab as a weakening of its influence over the UT.

While Punjab’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party tore into Haryana opposing the Centre’s decision to allow the Haryana Assembly complex in Chandigarh, it questioned, if Haryana is offering its Panchkula city's 12 acres of land to the Chandigarh administration in lieu of land for assembly, why is the assembly not being built there instead? The AAP leader Anmol Gagan Maan said that in 1966, when Haryana was carved out of Punjab, it was promised that Chandigarh would be handed over to Punjab after some time but it never happened. Another AAP leader Neel Garg held that the BJP-led Central government is intentionally weakening Punjab’s claim over Chandigarh.

Joining the protest against the said move, Senior Congress leader and the leader of Opposition in Punjab, Partap Singh Bajwa, on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling on him to ``acknowledge Punjab’s rightful claim over Chandigarh and fulfill longstanding promises made to the state''. He urged him to ``recognise Chandigarh as Punjab’s exclusive capital'' and highlighted the ``significance of Chandigarh, which was conceived as a symbol of resilience and rebirth for Punjab in the aftermath of Partition''.

Another opposition party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) held that any decision to allocate land to Haryana in the UT would be unconstitutional as it would violate Article 3 whereby Parliament alone could change state boundaries. The SAD senior leader Daljit Singh Cheema while urging union home minister Amit Shah to rescind the decision, also held it was in violation of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966. He also accused the AAP government of being hand in glove with Haryana and the Central government.

The Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar also opposed the said move and sought the Prime Minister’s intervention to cancel it. In his post on X, he said that the move to allow the land would emotionally hurt Punjabis as Chandigarh being the capital of Punjab is not merely a piece of land. It’s a matter of deep feeling for the people of the state.

However, reacting sharply to the Punjab political parties' objection to the said move, Haryana energy, transport, and labor minister Anil Vij flayed Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and said: ``Chandigarh belongs to you (Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann) only when you transfer the Hindi-speaking region to Haryana and give us (Haryana) the SYL canal water. Punjab does not even implement the agreement made between Haryana and Punjab, so how can Chandigarh belong to you?’’.