Averring firmly that Uttarakhand's annual Budget-2016-17 had been duly passed in the Assembly, former Chief Minister Harish Rawat appealed to the Governor to give his assent to it.
Addressing a Press conference on Tuesday, the former Chief Minister said that the Centre was doing "vulgar politics" by stating that the Budget was yet to be passed in the House. "The Budget stresses on the development of each category of the people like Dalit, Scheduled Castes, women, youth and minority and so its rejection would amount to an affront to the people as well as to the Assembly," he said, adding that will hold a 24-hour fast if any attempt is made by the Centre to annul the Budget.
"Our Constitution states clearly that the Budget must be passed in the Assembly if the House is alive. Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha was very much alive on March 18 -- the day the Budget was passed," he said.
Slamming Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for the controversy over the passage of the Budget, the former CM said he would have gone for an indefinite fasting had his health been a bit better.
Talking about the possibility of the President's Rule passing the scrutiny of law, Rawat said it is likely to be rejected by the court. "The Centre has dislodged a democratically elected Government by taking recourse to Article 356, citing constitutional breakdown when there was no ground for that. legal experts have opined that the decision is wrong and unconstitutional," he said.
Making it clear that he has a soft corner for the controversial Budget, Rawat said it had allocated adequate funds for the implementation of all the projects he had announced till January 2016. "The Ministers have created corpus of Rs 200 crore to execute the Chief Minister's announcements. Many of the announced projects were merged. For the rest, separate budgets have been allocated," former CM said. "BJP is hell-bent on rejecting the Budget as they know it has touched the chords of the people," he added.
MlA Navprabhat who was with Rawat at the Press conference said things about Budget have been clearly defined in the Constitution. "It says that after the departments' budgets are passed the Appropriation Bill is presented in the House. The members can neither bring cut motions on the financial bill nor can they demand division of vote. In spite of this, if such things happen, the Speaker's decision would be final," the MlA said.
He further said that the Speaker is empowered to change any rule to ensure the prompt passage of the money bill. "As per the Constitution, if the Parliament passes Budget the President is bound to give his assent. The same holds true in case of States," he added.