Shady land deals done by former Congress minister in the Omar Abdullah-led alliance Government has now come to haunt the BJP’s deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in Jammu and Kashmir.
long delay caused in taking any concrete action or scrapping the land deals allegedly done in grave violation of Jammu Master Plan has started taking its toll on the public image of Singh, also holding the charge of Housing and Urban Development department.
After assuming charge of the Ministry, Singh was apprised of the long list of irregularities allegedly committed by his predecessor in office ahead of the Assembly polls.
Instead of initiating formal enquiry to fix the accountability the BJP minister sat over the previous decisions and is now paying the price for maintaining stoic silence. In between several delegations also called on him and briefed him about the murky land deals while seeking his intervention in the matter.
local BJP MlA from posh Gandhi Nagar Assembly segment, Kavinder Gupta, was also briefed by the senior citizens of the area seeking his intervention to set the record straight. For reasons best known to him even then he chose to remain silent and ignored the feedback.
Anger brewing against the Minister for last over one month finally spilled on to the streets on Thursday as prominent citizens led the protest march against Singh and officials of the J&K Housing board and staged protest demonstrations.
Along with local residents even women folk came out on the streets braving blazing sun to register their protest against the illegal allotment of green strip of land for commercial use in Channi-Himmat area.
After all the glib talk and according top priority to tackling corruption Chief Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed is also finding himself in a tight spot as he failed to rope in his deputy Chief Minister to take appropriate action instead of inviting public wrath.
According to protesting residents the former Congress minister, in-charge of Housing department, had allegedly committed irregularities and went ahead with the allotment of commercial sites on a green strip of land which was yet to be retrieved after completing the concrete work of ‘open drain’.
One of the active members of the Channi Himmat Residents welfare Association Pl Kohli alleged the officials of the J&K Housing board preferred back door allotment of commercial sites on a green strip of land by deliberately ignoring the threat to ecology of the colony. The residents demanded thorough investigation and constitution of a high level committee to probe in to the irregularities and scrapping of illegal allotment to save the green gold.