Hitting out at the Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal who has been facing fire from the BJP since March 18 when he declared the Budget passed despite nine Congress MlAs turning rebels, state BJP chief spokesperson Munna Singh Chouhan said on Friday that the Speaker should immediately step down in view of the Speaker’s discretionary fund involving Rs 7.8 crore being misused blatantly. “He has spent the money to entice the voters of his constituency as around 33,000 out of 35,251 beneficiaries are from his Assembly constituency,” Chouhan said.
To give teeth to his charge, the BJP leader presented a bunch of papers procured through Right to Information (RTI) Act, to the media. He said that despite the Speaker enjoying an exalted place as next to the Governor, he had not shown scant regard for the decorum expected of him. “The figures clearly say that the Speaker has failed to rise above his petty electoral interest having his eyes riveted on Jageshwar, the constituency he is a representative from. He has thus violated the Article 14 of the Constitution that speaks against undue favoritism of any kind. The people of his constituency having a lion’s share of the benefits, a mere 2500 are from areas other than that of Jageshwar. This smacks of discrimination based on favouratism, something that is at contrary with the spirit of the Constitution,” Chouhan said.
Taking a jibe at the Speaker’s assertion that he would help build Uttarkhanad in tune with the dream dreamt by the statehood activists, he said that in reality he has let the state and its people down while pandering to his petty ambition of returning from the constituency. He added that the state expects him to step down.
Note worthy, the government has made provision of discretionary fund for the Speaker to enable him to execute works without depending upon the ministers.