Opposition moves privilege motion against 2 ministers

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, January 17

The National Conference and the Congress, two Opposition parties, today jointly moved a privilege motion against the Minister for Finance, Haseeb Drabu, and CAPD Minister Choudhary Zulfiqar Ali in the Upper House of the State Legislature for allegedly “misleading” the House on the total of number of households in the state.

All the 12 legislators of the NC and the Congress unanimously moved the contempt and privilege motion against the two sitting Cabinet ministers and a separate privilege motion against the sub-judge who issued orders for registration of an FIR against the sitting MLC of the NC, Showkat Ganai.

The privilege motion has also been moved againstthe complainant who approached the court with a complaint against the Ganai on his remarks for Hizb commander Burhan Wani.

It all started during the Question Hour this morning, when the Legislative Council witnessed uproar after NC member Bashir Ahmed Shah Veeri appealed to the Legislative Council Chairman, Haji Inayat Ali, to constitute a House committee to look into the alleged discrepancies in the list of total number of households in the state.

Showing the copy of Power Budget, Veeri said the Finance Minister, in his speech on January 11, had said about 20 lakh households had been electrified in the state while the remaining around 3 lakh were yet to be electrified.

“In response to a question of our party legislator Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo, the CAPD Minister said the government ration was being procured for a total of 28 lakh households in the state. There are huge discrepancies in the list of the total number of households and the different statements of two Cabinet ministers have indicated that there is a huge scandal in the procurement of the government ration, which needs to be probed,” Veeri said.

Kitchloo had asked whether it was a fact that the government had implemented the Food Safety and Security Act in Jammu and Kashmir. In response to this, the CAPD Minister informed that the Food Safety and Standards Act and the National Food Security Act had been implemented in J&K w.e.f August 5, 2011, and February 1, 2016, respectively.

Meanwhile, the minister clarified that the process to establish accurate number of families was still in progress and final figure had come up yet. However, the NC MLC was not convinced with the minister’s response and he continued to raise the issue seeking attention of the council Chairman.

Later, all the Opposition legislators moved the privilege motion against the Finance Minister and the CAPD Minister for allegedly presenting “contradictory figures and misleading” the House.

The House admitted the privilege motion.