The upcoming winter session of the state Assembly beginning in Dehradun on December 4 might see some fireworks on several issues as the Congress is now firming up its strategy to corner the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its government.
The state Congress president Pritam Singh said on Sunday that the party would raise many issues pertaining to the people’s interests on the floor of the Assembly during the winter session. “The government has failed on various fronts and my party would go all-out to tear into it by raising issues on which the government’s failure is most glaring,” he said. He, however, added that the strategy to be adopted by Congress legislators would be decided at the meeting of the Congress legislature party which would be held soon.
The leader of the opposition in the state Assembly Indira Hridayesh who was in Haldwani on the day, said that the Congress is now preparing to appropriately take on the state government from the first day of the upcoming Assembly session. “The financial condition of the state is very bad and subsequently, all the developmental works have come to a standstill. It has landed the state in economic mess and the people are suffering,” she said. She accused the state government of stalling the work on Haldwani inter -state bus terminus and international zoo. “The drinking water crisis has turned grim. We would also raise the issue of Nazul land during the session aside from myriad other issues,” she said.
Observers say that the session would be a stormy one. “We expect the opposition to send the ruling party on the defensive on the recent statement of the state BJP president Ajay Bhatt, saying that he was against holding the Assembly session at Gairsain till infrastructural and other facilities were installed. The statement has already sparked a major row in the state politics, given the emotive nature of the capital shift issue. The Congress lawmakers might try to be vociferous on the mater during the upcoming session to expose what the opposition leaders term as the double standards being practised by the ruling party to confuse the people. Besides, the long-pending issue of Lokayukt might be used by the opposition to embarrass the state government. The crucial bill on the appointment of the Lokayukt has been hanging fire in the Assembly for long,” said a political watcher based in Dehradun.