Uttarakhand assembly likely to host stormy winter session as Cong gears up to corner govt

The Opposition has been demanding that the session be extended. This time chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat would be unable to attend the session in person due to the Covid-19 infection and is likely to attend it virtually.

Updated on: Dec 20, 2020, 18:11:15 IST

Hindustan Times, Dehradun | By Neeraj Santoshi

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The three-day winter session of the Uttarakhand assembly which will commence from Monday, is expected to be a stormy one with Opposition Congress gearing up to attack the government on the issues of farm laws and corruption.

The three-day winter session of the Uttarakhand assembly will commence from Monday in Dehradun. (HT PHOTO.)

Party’s state in-charge Devendra Yadav is also going to reach Dehradun on the same day to lead members of the Youth Congress to gherao the assembly on the issue of unemployment.

The Opposition has been demanding that the session be extended. This time chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat would be unable to attend the session in person due to the Covid-19 infection and is likely to attend it virtually.

Pritam Singh, state Congress president, who is also the MLA from Chakrata said there are many important issues that the Congress will raise in the winter session.

“The main issues are unemployment, corruption, issue of farmers especially in the context of the farm bills, the Covid-19 situation in the state, economic distress and so on. The fact is that a three-day time period is quite short to discuss all the important issues,” he said.

Singh said the last assembly session in autumn was also limited to one day without any question hour. “This time we have demanded that the session be extended so that all the issues could be discussed in a proper way,” he said.

Leader of Opposition Indira Hridayesh who held a virtual meeting of all the 11 Opposition MLAs of Congress party a few days back, said, the party has decided to raise the issue of farm laws effectively in the upcoming winter session apart from taking up issues of corruption and unemployment in the state.

“We will also press for the demand that the session be extended so that all important issues related to the public can be raised. The state government has failed on so many fronts leaving the people to suffer,” Hridayesh said.

BJP meanwhile said it is the habit of the Congress to create a ruckus during the assembly session as it is frustrated and doesn’t know what to do.

State BJP president Bansidhar Bhagat said on one side Congress wants the assembly session to be extended and on the other, it will create pandemonium in the House and not allow the session to function smoothly. “Congress has run out of issues. It is now misleading people, like in the case of farm bills, to remain relevant in politics. They can’t digest what the BJP government has achieved,” he said

This time MLAs would also have to mandatorily carry Covid-19 negative test report with them to attend the assembly session. For the last three days, Covid-19 test of legislators is being carried out. Before entering the assembly, their negative report and that of their attending staff members will be checked apart from the routine thermal screening. The sitting arrangements inside the House have also been changed to ensure social distancing.

During the three-day session, the government will also present the state’s supplementary budget of Rs 4,096 crore.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neeraj Santoshi
Neeraj Santoshi is the Chief of Bureau for Hindustan Times in Uttarakhand, where he leads the state reporting team while covering government, politics, environment, wildlife, Uttarakhand High Court, and issues shaping the Himalayan region. With more than two decades in journalism across conflict zones, he has covered politically sensitive regions and environmentally fragile landscapes, and focused on stories that combine public interest with in-depth storytelling. An alumnus of Pune University with a Master’s in Communication Studies, he has reported extensively from Jammu & Kashmir (2003-2010), Madhya Pradesh (2010 to 2018 ) and Uttarakhand (Since 2018), covering subjects ranging from insurgency, elections and governance to wildlife conservation, mining, climate change, agriculture, human rights and social justice. He has covered politics and legislative assemblies of both Jammu & Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh over more than a decade. Before taking over as Chief of Bureau in Uttarakhand, he served as Special Correspondent with Hindustan Times in Madhya Pradesh and earlier reported for both Hindustan Times and The Indian Express in Jammu & Kashmir, where he covered state politics, environment and insurgency-related developments. Over the years, his stories have focused on environmental degradation, wildlife, illegal mining, governance and the changing social fabric of Himalayan states and Central India. He is particularly interested in long-form explanatory journalism, and stories that explore the intersection of ecology, conservation, governance and society. Outside the newsroom, Neeraj enjoys reading widely on neuroscience, consciousness studies, Artificial Intelligence and quantum physics, with a special interest in Kashmiri Tantric Shaivist traditions. He is also passionate about wildlife, mountaineering and the Himalayas, interests that continue to inform his reporting and deepen his understanding of the region he covers.Read More

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