The two -day session of the third Assembly, set to start from Thursday in the small town Bharadisain in Chamoli district, is most likely to be a tumultuous one with the Opposition BJP deciding to send its MlAs whose constituencies do not fall along the route of the ongoing Parivartan Yatra to attend the session. Informing the party’s decision, the State BJP chief and leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt, who had earlier been disinclined to participate, citing the argument that the controversial Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal would preside over it, said on Wednesday that they had changed tack to confront the treasury bench head-on. “We would not let the treasury bench to get away with the lies they are concocting and spreading to defame us and to confuse the people,” he said, talking to The Pioneer, while he was on his way to attend the BJP legislature party meeting at Bharadisain. “We would raise the issues bearing on the interests of the people inside the House,” he said, adding that they would nail the lies the ruling Congress has been spreading over the Centre’s action, scrapping high value currencies. “They are bent on inciting the people by harping on their problems to exchange or to withdraw money. We would raise myriad issues like corruption, black marketing of salt and other necessary commodities. They are creating scarcity to harass the people with a mischievous design to incite them against the Centre. However, the positive thing is that the people, though inconvenienced, are warmly appreciating the revolutionary move initiated by the Centre to weed out black money,” Bhatt said.
Tearing into the Harish Rawat Government on the shift of the State capital to Gairsain, he said that they are making a mockery of the emotive issue. “They have been holding Assembly session at Gairsain since 2014 without clearing their stance. We have been pressuring them to declare Gairsain as the permanent capital of Uttarakhand. We are saying that we are ready to lend them whole-hearted support in case they go for the long-awaited shift. But they are choosing to keep the matter hang fire while staging drama to confound the people. In case they fail to announce the shift the money being spent to build MlA hostels and other infrastructure there would go down the drain. We have a copy of the Government notification, which says that MlA hostels and other infrastructure will be used to promote tourism. This nails their lies. Can infrastructure being built for a full-fledged Assembly be used for tourismIJ This would suffice to make it clear that they are taking the people for a ride,” the BJP leader said.