Rattled by the flak over tourism remaining elusive in the 23-page Governor’s address that marked the commencement of the Budget Session of the Assembly, the Chief Minister, Harish Rawat, has gone on the defensive, stating that the Budget would take care of the State’s priority sectors.
Justifying the omission of the sector he alludes to day in day out as the bedrock of the State’s economy, Rawat said the Government had kept it out of the speech because the people must not be encouraged to daydream. “Our budget would showcase our commitment to and the roadmap for tourism,” he said, while addressing a programme organised by the Information Department to release a magazine containing the Government’s achievements made over the past three years, at the Chief Minister’s residence on Saturday.
However, Rawat seemed to have missed the drift of things. The Opposition BJP leader had said before the Governor delivered his speech that it would contain a bunch of lies, would be mere moonshine, meant to flaunt the State Government’s spurious achievements. His comment seemed to have buttressed the saffron view that his Government had nudged the people into the blissful state of daydreaming through the Governor’s speech that was meant to usher them into the golden Elysium, full to the brim with the milk of development.
Sounding baffled over the Chief Minister taking recourse to the logic of daydreaming, leader of Opposition Ajay Bhatt said the ruling party had taken pains to have the Governor’s speech passed after four-hour-long debate on the third day of the ongoing Budget Session on March 13 amidst the Opposition’s protest.
“Now, should we believe that the speech is a lullaby, sending the people into daydreaming or star-gazingIJ” Bhatt asked.