Cong’s poor performance helps BJP MLAs steal show

| | Dehradun
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Cong’s poor performance helps BJP MLAs steal show

Sunday, 23 September 2018 | PNS | Dehradun

After a break of three days, the monsoon session of the Uttarakhand Assembly would resume on Monday. Among the highlights of the session so far is the lacklustre performance of the Congress MLAs with the ruling BJP lawmakers stealing the show as they played the Opposition in the House while tearing hard into the Government on issues of public interests.

The Congress lawmakers seem to have cut a sorry figure as their performance so far this session is far from impressive, say the observers. “It is not that they lacked issues to attack the State Government with. Either they lacked the will to go all-out or the factional schism gnawing at the State party unit came in the way of the robust aggressive role expected of the Opposition party. The vacuum was aptly filled by some of the BJP MLAs who bared prowess while tearing into the ministers with sharply pointed questions on important public interest issues,” said a State watcher.

Another observer said that despite her long experiences in legislative politics, the leader of the Opposition Indira Hridayesh failed to come into her true colour so far this session.  “This is really disappointing.  Besides, there was expectation of fireworks from the deputy leader of the Congress legislature party Karan Mahara.  His performance was not impressive as per the expectation. The least said about the rest the better. They were ill- prepared and worse, unconcerned,” said the observer.

Interestingly, the Congress legislators have so far failed to raise emotive issues like gang rape of a school girl in one of the most prominent boarding schools, sexual harassment of a visually challenged girl in National Institute of Visually Handicapped (NIVH) and the alarming spike in number of crimes against women, bringing under spotlight the fast deteriorating law and order condition of the state.

Many of the observers seemed to have been shocked by the Congress legislators’ failure to latch on to the broad day light murder of a building material supplier in an area falling within the chief minister’s constituency. “This is baffling, given the fact that the brutal, premeditated murder was committed when the House was in session,” said an observer.

True, on the very first day of the session on Tuesday, the Congress members tried to corner the Government on the issue of price rise. But the intervention of the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Pant blunted the Opposition attack by his spirited and cogent defence of the State Government, according to the observers. 

On the second day of the session, the BJP MLAs raised issues like reservation of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Castes ( OBC) in the Urban Local Bodies (ULB), sound pollution, pending compensation in the man-wild life conflict cases and felling of Pine trees.  On issue of reservation in ULBs, BJP members Deshraj Karanwal,  Chandan Ram Das and Suresh Rathore launched a fiery attack on the State Government.  Similarly, BJP MLAs Surendra Singh Jeena and Munna Singh Chauhan raised issues which embarrassed the weather-beaten Forest Minister Harak Singh Rawat. On day three, BJP MLA Chandan Ram Das bemused the House when he offered to resign from membership of the Assembly on the issue of man eater leopard prowling around in Bageshwar.

Many hope that the Congress lawmakers would rise up to the occasion when the Assembly meets again on Monday, would show some fireworks and salvage the image of the party as  a responsible, public-spirited Opposition which has taken a severe beating in the first phase of the session. 

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