Raj Bhawan is there to follow norms, not fulfil poll promises, says Guv

Peeved over the outburst by the Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi against Raj Bhawan on the issue of delay in grant of nautor land to people of Kinnaur, Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla today retorted by stating that he was here to follow norms and not to fulil anybody’s election promises.

People will take to streets: Negi

• Jagat Singh Negi had remarked that if there is any further delay in the necessary formalities to be done by the Governor on the issue of grant of nautor land, people will be forced to protest peacefully on the streets.
• The minister reportedly said that he had met the Governor on five occasions regarding the completion of formalities to pave the way for grant of nautor land, but it was still not approved

“We are still awaiting the response on some objections that we had raised from the state government. I have never said that we are against it but we want complete details of the names and number of proposed beneficiaries. If they try to fake the names and numbers, Raj Bhawan will not be accountable for that,” he said here today in an informal interaction with media persons.

Shukla categorically said that it was not Raj Bhawan’s responsibility to fulfil the election promises made by anyone. “He is a respectable minister, he can come here anytime. Raj Bhawan has administered the oath of office to the minister. He can disrespect Raj Bhawan but we still respect him,” said Shukla while referring to the remarks made by the Revenue Minister against the Governor.

It is yesterday that Negi had remarked that if there is any further delay in the necessary formalities to be done by the Governor on the issue of grant of nautor land, people will be forced to protest peacefully on the streets. The minister reportedly said that he has met the Governor on five occasions regarding the completion of formalities to pave the way for grant of nautor land but it had still not been approved.

The Cabinet has passed a proposal for grant of nautor land to people of Kinnaur and sent it to the Governor. It is only after the Governor suspends the Forest Conservation Act under Schedule V of the Constitution that nautor land can be given to the people of Kinnaur who have very little land. It is reliably learnt that about 20,000 applications for grant of nautor land are pending with the government.

In the past also the then Governors had suspended the Forest Conservation Act (FCA) to facilitate the grant of nautor land to people in Kinnaur thrice. As such it will not be for the first time that the FCA will be suspended to give land to people from the undemarcated forest.

The issue could snowball into a major controversy and bring the state government into direct confrontation with the Governor. In a similar incident, the Governor had expressed displeasure over remarks by the Agriculture Minister Chander Kumar over a pending Bill with the Raj Bhawan even though had been sent back to the state government.