A day before the crucial Budget session of the Assembly is to start, the State Government convened an all- party meeting in the Vidhan Sabha in Dehradun on Wednesday during which the treasury bench and opposition MlAs have pledged to see that the House runs smoothly during the session.
While talking to The Pioneer after the meeting was over, the State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Pant said that they had assured the opposition MlAs during the meeting that the Government would answer their queries while seeking their cooperation in helping the Government run the session smoothly. It is learnt that the budget speech would be made on the opening day of the session on Thursday. “The State Government is determined to have the budget speech presented even if the opposition seeks to disrupt it, citing one issue or another,” said another Minister who insisted on anonymity.
The leader of the Opposition Indira Hridayesh said that they would cooperate with the treasury bench in running the session, sans any glitch. “But we would ask the Government to explain why the CBI is still dithering on taking up the probe into the NH-74 land compensation scam despite a long time has passed since the state government recommended CBI investigation into the alleged scam. In case they fail to explain things to our satisfaction we would be left with no other option but to opt for means to have our questions answered,” she said. She further said that they are duty-bound to expose the double dealing of the issue by BJP. “While on the one hand, the State Government here is vowing zero tolerance for corruption the Centre led by the same party is employing every trick in the book to scuttle the demand for a CBI probe. We would make an issue of the letter written by the Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari in which he warned the State Government of dire consequences related to development in case the latter insisted on the CBI probe.
We need an answer to this baffling dichotomy in the party that is ruling the Centre as well as the state,” she said.
A senior BJP MlA said that the stance of the State Government on this matter is irreproachable. “We have recommended CBI inquiry after the initial probe revealed that NH-74 land acquisition scam is to the tune of over 350 crores involving 18 separate cases of fraud apparently committed to spike compensation by converting agricultural lands into non-agricultural ones.
Now, it is for the CBI to decide. It takes at least 90 days either to accept or to reject. Placed in this situation, we have no other option but to wait. The opposition must understand the technicalities involved in the matter,” he added.