Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal has stirred a hornet’s nest by his charge that corruption is a way of life in Uttarakhand and that the State is way ahead of other States in terms of corruption. The Congress-led State government may not take the remark kindly and may even take stringent action against the Speaker and open the pending vigilance enquiry against him.
Sources in the State government said that Speaker Kunjwal had misused his powers during his tenure as a Cabinet Minister in the ND Tiwari government between 2002 and 2007. Exercising his powers as a Cabinet Minister, he had reportedly leased out a cold storage in Almora for Rs 50,000 per annum without following the bidding procedure. later, he had allegedly manipulated the government lease deed and empowered the lease holder to mortgage the cold storage to the bank for a loan of Rs 1 crore. later, the lease holder vanished.
During investigations, it was found that seven bureaucrats had facilitated the then Minister in the manipulation of the lease deed. Now, the State has decided to punish the seven officers because they did not bother to fix the accused at their level.
Sources said the Chief Minister has taken the Speaker’s remark rather seriously. It certainly beats all as to why Kunjwal was mum on the issue all this while or refrained from raising it inside the House. Or, why he was leveling such charges before the mediaIJ It appears it has something to do with social activist Anna Hazare, who is currently on an Uttarakhand tour. Or, it could have been just for the sake of grabbing media attention.
Sources further said that Vijay Bahuguna while taking oath as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand had expressly prohibited, at a Cabinet meeting, all Cabinet ministers from appointing their relatives as officer on special duty (OSD) or public relations officer (PRO). Despite this, Speaker Kunjwal appointed his son in the Vidhan Sabha.
Sources said that Chief Minister Bahuguna along with state PCC president Yashpal Arya had apprised the party high command that Kunjwal was made Speaker because he was from Union Minister Harish Rawat camp. As model code of conduct announced for local bodies’ polls then, Minister Rawat wrote a letter to the State government and alleged that several proposals which were mooted by him, were yet to see any progress. By exploding the ‘letter bomb’, Rawat had created an uproar in State politics which confused the party workers. Ultimately, the party could not win a single mayor’s seat out of the six in the recently concluded local bodies’ polls.
Earlier, when the State government was busy laying the foundation stone of Vidhan Sabha building in Gairsain, the Speaker mooted an idea to declare Gairsain a permanent capital of Uttarakhand. By doing this, he demeaned the chair of the Speaker, which is a Constitutional post. The Speaker cannot raise such issues. Now, the State government is going to face panchayat election in the next few months. And the Speaker has exploded the ‘corruption bomb’. By saying this he has given an issue to the Opposition.
Sources further said that AICC general secretary Choudhary Birender Singh had taken this issue seriously and might even seek an explanation from Speaker Kunjwal in the next few days.
A day after the Speaker’s allegation, the BSP and independent MlAs have jointly asked him to disclose where exactly corruption is rife. The Congress-led State government is being supported by three BSP, one UKD and three independent MlAs.
Disappointed CM refuses to comment
Dehradun: Replying to Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal’s statement, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, who returned from Delhi on Friday evening after meeting with Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, said he was very disappointed. Talking to The Pioneer on Saturday. he refused to make any comment on it and said the party high command had taken cognisance of it. PNS