It’s strange but true. Uttarakhand Cabinet Minister Harak Singh Rawat just may lose his Vidhan Sabha membership because he occupies the post of chairman of Uttarakhand Seeds & Terai Development Corporation (USTDC), categorised as an office of profit.
The State BJP is consistently raking up this issue and has lodged a complaint with Governor Aziz Qureshi and the Election Commission. The party is now planning to approach high court.
Once the Bhati Commission report observed that Hemant Dwivedi’s appointment as USTDC chairman was illegal, the BJP feels appointment of Rawat to the same post is similarly illegal.
According to Article 191, a person shall be disqualified for being chosen as and for being, a member of the legislative Assembly or legislative Council if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India, or the Government of any State specified in the First Schedule, other than an office declared by the legislature of the State by law not to disqualify its holder.
Uttarakhand Government had already removed 57 posts — 26 in 2006, 28 in 2008 and three in 2010 — from the office of profit category, to avoid difficult situations. A copy of the list of posts which can’t be criteria for disqualification of membership is with The Pioneer.
However, the posts in USTDC and Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam ltd (UPNl) — both held by Rawat — were not removed from the category. As a result, the BJP is getting more and more vocal by the day while Rawat finds himself in an uneasy situation.