Being at the receiving end of the Opposition’s barbs being hurled at him in and out of the Assembly, the cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat who along with the former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna had raised the flag of revolt against then chief minister Harish Rawat and left Congress with six other MlAs, had sought to defend himself in the House on Thursday while resorting to an emotion-packed speech.
With the opposition losing no opportunity to lash out at him, calling him a turncoat and a thoroughly corrupt politician, he said that he had quit the Congress under duress to save democracy with the Harish Rawat dispensation trying systematically to smother it. The latest provocation behind the controversial minister’s outburst was the comment of the former Speaker and a senior Congress Govind Singh Kunjwal who said that Harak through his detestable defection had proved instrumental in the rout of the Congress and the former CM Harish Rawat.
Taking the battle to the Congress’s court, Harak said that he was being dubbed as corrupt after he had left the government and the Congress. “My question is –had I been corrupt since the time I was in the Congress-helmed Government the Congress leadership should have sacked me from the government. Everybody knows how the coterie run by Harish Rawat with the former Speaker being a member of it sought to finish democracy off. I saved democracy as well as myself by quitting the government and the party,” an emotional Harak Singh Rawat said.
He exhorted the Congress MlAs to follow his lead and to leave the sinking ship to ensure that it sinks once and for all. It was at this point of time that the independent MlA Preetam Singh Panwar strongly objected to the minster, alleging that he was wasting the precious time of the House while indulging in emotional flippancy in defence of his past acts. Harak retorted that he was just defending himself against the continuing attacks he was being subjected to by the Congress MlAs and the leaders. “I know what I am saying,” he said.