After facing criticism for not following the order of State Government on salary deduction for Covid-19 fund, the president of Uttarakhand BJP and MLA from Kaladhungi, Bansidhar Bhagat has asked the Vidhan Sabha secretariat to deduct 30 percent of his salary and allowances for Covid-19 fund.
On Saturday, the state BJP chief met the speaker Prem Chand Agarwal at his office and handed him over a letter requesting that 30 percent of his salary and allowances should be deducted for Covid-19 fund. Earlier Bhagat was deducting 30 percent of his basic salary only for the fund.
It is pertinent to mention here that the ruling BJP was left red faced recently when a RTI query filed Congress MLA from Kedarnath Manoj Rawat revealed that only a handful of the BJP MLAs are actually following the cabinet decision of 30 percent of salary and allowances for Covid-19 fund.
Rawat claimed that while a sum of Rss 57600 is being deducted from the salary of all 11 MLAs of Congress party, only 13 MLAs of BJP are having deduction of Rss 57600 from their salaries. He claimed that 16 MLAs of BJP were having a deduction of Rss 30000 per month while four MLAs of the ruling party were having a deduction of Rss 12600 per month. Apart from them there are 13 BJP MLAs who are having a deduction of Rss 9000 per month.
The disclosure provided ammunition to the Congress leaders to attack the Government. Former chief minister (CM) and general secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Harish Rawat and other Congress leaders criticized the BJP Government for failing to get necessary deductions from its own MLAs. Clearing the Government stand, the senior cabinet minister and government spokesperson Madan Kaushik said recently that as per the GO, 30 percent of the salary and allowances should be deducted. He added that the state government could bring in an ordinance for the deduction in the salary and allowances.
Commenting on the decision of state BJP president on salary deduction, the Congress MLA Manoj Rawat said that the whole episode shows that Bhagat was not aware of the cabinet decision. It also shows the way this government is functioning, he added.