Demolition drive steamrolls amid protests by residents

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 16

A day after the Municipal Corporation started the process to remove illegal constructions from various areas of the city amidst fierce opposition from within the party – notably Congress MLA Sushil Rinku - the MC continued the process of demolition of shops in the district.

Though there was some fierce opposition by an MLA within the Congress and murmurs in other quarters over Sidhu’s drive, the Municipal Corporation has sent clear indications that the drive ordered by Sidhu is not going to stop anytime soon in the district.

Teams of the Municipal Corporation razed illegally constructed shops in the Doaba market near the Jalandhar bus stand. While the same site was among the ones visited by Sidhu on his high-on-action tour on Friday, the demolition today was also not totally without opposition.

While residents and shop owners at the site protested the razing of shops, a relative of one of the shop owners also indulged in a scuffle with the police. However, he was later pacified and the work of demolition continued all through.

Meanwhile, MC Commissioner Basant Garg confirmed that the demolition of all the buildings visited by Sidhu and the additional ones identified as illegal shall continue as per norms by the Municipal Corporation.

Jalandhar Municipal Commissoner Basant Garg said, “The razing of buildings will proceed as per norms, those inspected and identified as unauthorised by the minister as well as others. As far as the procedure of lodging of FIRs against the suspended officials is concerned, the corporation is also working on it and the proceedings are being readied.”

Opposition ups the ante 

Though voices are being raised within the Congress both in support of and against Sidhu's action, the opposition has also begun taking a dig at the Congress party's silence over MLA Rinku's obstruction of the work being conducted by government officials in the district. 

Contending that similar obstructions by the opposition leaders had not been spared, Rinku, had on Friday, climbed atop a JCB machine which had gone to demolish illegal buildings on the Kala Sanghian Road, terming the drive by Sidhu and the demolition of the structures detrimental to the electorate who had voted for him in his constituency - Jalandhar West. 

Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Khaira, in a statement released here today, condemned Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today. 

Khaira accused the CM of adopting double standards on the roles being played by the ruling party and the opposition MLAs. Khaira said while the Ludhiana police registered an FIR against the whistleblower MLA, Simarjeet Singh Bains, for obstructing government officials (under section 353 and trespass under section 451 of the IPC), during Bains' peaceful visit to the Verka milk plant, a semi-government cooperative institution, he said the CM, on the contrary, was maintaining a stoic silence over the activity of MLA Sushil Kumar Rinku, who climbed atop a JCB undertaking demolition of illegal colony on the instructions of Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu. Khaira demanded that either MLA Rinku should be booked under the same sections slapped against Bains or the FIR against Bains should be withdrawn. 

Meanwhile, murmurs from the other parties have been going on against Sidhu's drive in the first place. SAD leader Pawan Kumar Tinu condemned the drive terming it a mere sham. He said Sidhu should have started action from Amritsar first. “If it had included the rich and influential with homes in illegal colonies, then it might have made sense. But is has been directed only against the small fish while the bigger players have not even been touched. It has in turn exposed factionalism within the Congress.”