Opposition Congress in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday said it will move the courts if Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal makes “back-door appointments” to “accommodate” BJP MLAs, who could not be made ministers.
There have been reports in the media recently that amid pressure from within the party, Dhumal might appoint a few Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPS) and Parliamentary Secretaries (PS) in order to “please” the BJP MLAs.
“The appointment of CPS and PS will be unconstitutional and immoral on the part of the CM,” state Congress president Kaul Singh Thakur told reporters here.
He said that Dhumal as leader of the opposition in 2006 had vehemently opposed the appointment of CPS and PS by the previous Congress regime of Virbhadra Singh and had taken the matter to the High Court and later to the Supreme Court.
Thakur said that besides approaching the courts to annul appointments of CPS and PS, Dhumal also protested a legislation introduced by the Congress in 2005 for making provision for such appointments by arguing that it would put unnecessary economic burden on the state.
Though the ‘HP CPS and PS (salary and privileges) Act 2006´ was passed in the assembly, it was not implemented by the Congress in view of widespread protest, following which the BJP withdrew its petition from the SC, Thakur said.
{{/usCountry}}Though the ‘HP CPS and PS (salary and privileges) Act 2006´ was passed in the assembly, it was not implemented by the Congress in view of widespread protest, following which the BJP withdrew its petition from the SC, Thakur said.
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