Govt was insulting Oppn, says Dhumal

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 28

Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Prem Kumar Dhumal today said the government was deliberately insulting Opposition members as they wanted to avoida debate on important issues.

Talking to media persons outside the Assembly, Dhumal said it was the right of opposition to protest in case it is denied an opportunity to debate important issues. “It is for the first time during the monsoon session that we trooped into the well of the House. Virbhadra, who is a six-time Chief Minister, should have acted with more grace and responsibility rather than provoking his ministers and party MLAs, resulting in the ugly situation,” he lamented.

Dhumal said that despite repeated requests by the BJP to raise the incident of misbehaviour by the Principal of Sanjauli college, the opposition was denied time by the Speaker. “It is under Rule 62 also that some of the BJP members had sought a debate but it was denied by the Speaker and when our party president Satpal Satti very respectfully tried to present some papers to the chief minister, his reaction was shocking and unbelievable,” said Dhumal.

“Entire BJP legislature party has been insulted today and what is even worse is that the Chief Minister made no efforts to control the situation,” Dhumal said.

Satti said he had only tried to bring to the notice of the Chief Minister, xerox copies of the very objectionable posts made by Chief Parliamentary Secretary Neeraj Bharti against BJP and its leaders on social media sites.

He added that the BJP wanted to participate in the debate as very important issues concerning the public had been listed for the day. “In fact, the government is now talking of being very sympathetic towards the small and marginal farmers but the fact is it was during our tenure that we made rule for regularization of the encroachments,” he said.

He said during his regime, it had been decided to take market value of the encroached land or take land in exchange as the extentof encroachment by the small farmers was negligible.