BJP using money to oust elected govts, says CM
Tribune News Service
Dehradun, March 21
Chief Minister Harish Rawat today attacked the BJP for throttling democracy through money power and tried to take the fight in the opposition camp by levelling the charges of corruption.
He said senior BJP leaders had acquired land in the state on nominal rates.
Addressing mediapersons here, he accused the Centre of trampling democracy by engineering rebellions through money power. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had got an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha poll, but his government had been working overtime to throttle democracy in smaller states such as Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
He claimed that he would prove his majority on the floor of the Assembly as directed by the Governor.
He said the double face of the BJP stood exposed on its allegations against his government on the issue of proposed smart city project on tea estates. He showed letters written by several BJP leaders, including BJP state chief Ajay Bhatt, former state party president Teerath Singh Rawat, Harbanns Kapoor and Ganesh Joshi, both BJP MLAs, asking him to have the smart city on the outskirts of the city.
He said his government had been under fire on the allotment of land to a group for starting a residential school at Nainisar in Almora district but that had been done under the policy to promote investment in education, health and tourism.
He alleged that several BJP leaders had also got lands allocated to them in the past and he would also bring out the truth soon. On the question of allegations of corruption in the mining sector, Rawat said 700 mining leases were allotted before he took over as Chief Minister of the state.
He said a wrong trend had been started in which money had been playing a big role in toppling the elected government and he would resist it wholeheartedly.
He appealed to the people of the state to judge for themselves the conduct of the BJP and the nine rebel Congress legislators, whom he described as neo-BJP members.
