Chief Minister Harish Rawat has defeated the no confidence motion which was brought by the Opposition against the Harish Rawat-led Uttarakhand Government, by 40 votes in the 70-member Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday.
By winning the confidence of the House, the Harish Rawat Government has made the Government secure for the next six months because the Opposition can’t bring such a motion within the next six months. Now, the question being asked is why did the BJP brought the no-confidence motion despite knowing the fact that it has only 30 members in the Assembly.
After winning the confidence of the House, CM Rawat expressed gratitude towards the Opposition and said that now people would take cognizance of it that how Opposition created hurdle in rehabilitation and reconstruction work of State after disaster by bringing a no-confidence motion against the less than 18 days old Harish Rawat Government.
During debate, leader of Opposition Ajay Bhatt alleged that Cabinet Ministers have conveyed their grievance before media and now everybody is talking about why chief minister is making delay in distribution of portfolios among the Cabinet ministers. With this incident, entire nation is talking about Uttarakhand and this would be second occurrence after disaster-2013.
Bhatt reminded that Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna took oath on March 13, 2012 as chief minister and later cabinet took oath after 10 days. later, CM Bahuguna had allocated portfolios among the cabinet colleagues within few days but incumbent chief minister Rawat had taken oath along with his cabinet colleague on February 1, 2014 and portfolio distribution is yet to happen.
He also alleged that from beginning congress led state government has adopted wrong policies in the state. By luring BJP MlA they set wrong precedent before the state. Since inception congress led government is busy in grabbing the public land. For instance they sold SIIDCUl land to private builders @ `5,500 per square yard in Pantnagar, Udham Singh Nagar and the builder sold the land @ `32,000 per square yard. Similarly, Government sold SIIDCUl Haridwar land @ `6,600 per square yard to a builder and the builder sold the land @ `28,000-30,000 per square yard. With these two piece of land Private builder earned `307.82 crore and `272.6596 crore respectively.
He also apprised the House that how the State Government has failed to unearth the partly buried dead bodies from Kedar valley till October 2013. To ascertain his claim Bhatt also produced photographs of the scattered dead bodies, which were taken either on October 23 or 24, 2013 and challenged if government proves the photographs were taken before October 2013 then he would resign from politics. Now uprooted people, who lost their house during disaster 2013, are still residing in temporary shelters.
“Even Government has identified 278 such families but yet to disburse the compensation among the beneficiary. We can imagine their pathetic condition about how they are residing in temporary makeshift when snowfall is happening.” He also asked whether the State Government say how many families were rehabilitated so far. Sharpening his arsenal, Bhatt alleged that 4,200 villages are disconnected with road, 1,840 motor roads yet to repaired; 3,700 electricity poles are yet to re-install and 967 water pipelines are yet to restore.
Due to dillydallying approach of state government, who wished to build road by PWD, BRO has retrenched their workers. “As we know that state machinery is not familiar to work in such inimical condition so he raised suspicion how the State Government would reconstruct the infrastructure before re-opening of Kedarnath shrine by May 5”.
later MlA Madan Kaushik, MlA Banshidhar Bhagat and MlA & Ex CM Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank used their abilities to grill the Rawat Government. During debate Dr Nishank said that there is no work no pay norm is applicable here, then how state cabinet ministers are getting their salaries. Is it not a matter of constitutional crisis, he asked.
After patient listening, CM Rawat asked three questions from Opposition including did they have option before destabilising the government. “Did we fail to serve the stateIJ Did we orchestrate any financial irregularitiesIJ” Earlier they brought constitutional crisis that governor has not allocated portfolios to the Chief Minister and when we show the Government notification then they were speechless. Meanwhile, MlA and ex-Speaker Harbans Kapur alleged that due to delay in portfolio distribution public related works are getting delayed.