Poll time to correct constitutional mistake: Jaitley

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, October 22

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday, while alluding to the March 18 political upheaval in the state, said that Assembly elections would provide an opportunity to the people of Uttarakhand to correct the constitutional mistake “where a minority government was changed to a majority government and was still considered constitutional”.

Jaitley, while addressing a gathering of intellectuals in Dehradun, said, “I have remained a student of the Constitution and law throughout my life but when I write in the future there will also be this paradox-that an example came in the country’s democracy when a minority government was changed to a majority government and was still considered constitutional”.

Sometimes, mistakes were corrected in the future. “We will not have to wait that much longer as the elections are almost there and the people of the state will fulfil the objectives for which it was created,” said Jaitley.

He said people who laid down their lives for the creation of the state would have never imagined that a time would come “when Uttarakhand would become a centre of corruption”. “Any state that is on the path of growth should maintain its credibility. It cannot be achieved through corruption,” he added.

Jaitley later went to The Doon School to participate in the 83rd Founder’s Day celebrations and addressed students. Earlier, he arrived in Dehradun and went to Raj Bhavan where he was welcomed by Governor KK Paul.