The newly-appointed leader of the Congress legislature Party (ClP) TS Singh Deo on Friday demanded that the Deputy Speaker of the State legislative Assembly should be from the Congress.
The ClP leader also announced that he was convening a meeting of all the elected MlAs on January 5 which would also be attended by the candidates who lost in the recently concluded Assembly polls. While talking to reporters on the first day of becoming the ClP leader at the State party headquarters ‘Congress Bhawan’ Singh Deo demanded that the ruling BJP Government table a ‘Chhattisgarh specific’ lokpal Bill in the State Assembly on the lines of what had been demanded by the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Delhi and passed in the Parliament.
He remarked, “Chief Minister Raman Singh had called me while extending his greetings on my election as ClP leader, wherein, I demanded from him to select the Deputy Speaker of the Chhattisgarh Assembly from the Congress party.” To the query over the decision of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi taking a break from active politics for a year, Singh Deo said that Ajit Jogi is a senior party leader and he could not advice him. However, he said that he would seek guidance and support from the former Chief Minister.
Singh Deo said that the issues over Indira Priyadarshini Bank scam, Jheeram Ghati masscare by the Maoists which had claimed the lives of front line Congress leaders on May 25 last year, alongwith others, would be raised again in the Chhattisgarh Assembly. The ClP leader while commenting on the BJP claims of ‘zero-tolerance policy’ on the corruption issue said that it was ironic that the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, YS Yeddurappa had joined the BJP once again.
The ClP leader also spoke of picking up the Shikshakarmi (teachers) issue many of whom, he claimed, had approached him claiming to have been receiving curtailed incentives despite having been promised by State Government before the Assembly polls that they would be granted equal pay for equal work. The continuing steep hike in prices of essential building materials including cement, sand and minerals also would be taken up in this Assembly session, he said.