Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal’s allegation that corruption is flourishing in Uttarakhand and ‘if you make comparison with other State then you will find Uttarakhand is ahead of other States’, has irked the State Congress. Sources said that by making this allegation Kunjwal has created ripple in the Congress-led State Government and the Government may take stringent action against the Speaker and they may open pending vigilance enquiry against the Speaker.
Sources in the State Government said that incumbent Speaker Kunjwal had misused his power while he was a Cabinet Minister in the ND Tiwari Government between 2002-07. Even vigilance enquiry is pending against the Minister. Now he is talking about corruption.
Being a Cabinet Minister he had allotted a cold storage based in Almora on lease of Rs50,000 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 before bank to get loan of Rs1 crore. later, the lease holder ran away.
In layman term, the Minister had swindled the hard-earned money of the farmers and no action was taken against the alleged accused. During the investigation, 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 alleged accused at their level.
Sources further said that the Chief Minister has taken this allegation seriously and raised question that why Kunjwal was mum on this issue from the beginning as Speaker of UttarakhandIJ Even he did not bother to raise such issue inside the House then why he made such allegation before the mediaIJ It seems he is inspired from famous social activist Anna Hazare, who is busy on Uttarakhand tour, which is why he might have raised corruption issue to gather media attention only.
Sources further said that as Vijay Bahuguna took oath as Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, he had convened a Cabinet meeting in which they had informally decided no Cabinet Minister would appoint their relative as officer on special duty (OSD) or Public Relation Officer (PRO). Despite it, Speaker Kunjwal has appointed his son in Vidhan Sabha. Now he is talking about corruption.