Corruption-free governance, providing land to the landless, introducing people-friendly rehabilitation and disaster management policies besides ensuring jobs for the unemployed youth are some of the several promises included in the manifesto of the CPI-ML for the ensuing assembly elections released recently.
"Besides, if voted to power, we will also regularise about one lakh workers like Asha karyakatris, Aganwadi workers and Bhojan matas associated with various government department, who are forced to work literally as bonded labourers," said the state in-charge of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), Raja Bahuguna.
According to him, the CPI-ML will also handover to the Panchayat bodies the management of about 10 lakh acres of benap (unmeasured) land, the ownership of which will soon pass on from the forest department to the revenue department following a recent decision by the state government whereby it repealed a colonial law of the 1893. Speaking to Hindustan Times on Friday, Bahuguna said if the CPI-ML got an opportunity to form the next government with the support of other Left parties and the regional outfits like the Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha, the party would bring in an effective anti-graft law.
"We will replace the Lokayukta Act introduced recently by the B C Khanduri-led Bharatiya Janata Party government," said Bahuguna. "Khanduri may have claimed that he has brought the chief minister within the ambit of the Lokayukta Act but the fact is that it’s a toothless law, which provides immunity to the chief minister and other public servants, including the lower bureaucracy from legal action," he added.
{{/usCountry}}"We will replace the Lokayukta Act introduced recently by the B C Khanduri-led Bharatiya Janata Party government," said Bahuguna. "Khanduri may have claimed that he has brought the chief minister within the ambit of the Lokayukta Act but the fact is that it’s a toothless law, which provides immunity to the chief minister and other public servants, including the lower bureaucracy from legal action," he added.
{{/usCountry}}"The Lokayukta Act is toothless because, as per its provisions, no corrupt bureaucrat or politician, be it a chief minister, ministers or legislators can be prosecuted without all the members of the panel giving their unanimous consent for that," Bahuguna said. He added that the CPI-ML would bring in an effective anti-graft law that would allow any corrupt public servant, including chief minister, ministers and bureaucrats to be prosecuted without any preconditions of any kind.
Bahuguna said that his party would also cater to the popular sentiment of the people in Uttarakhand by setting up the state's permanent capital at Gairsain, a hill town equidistant from both Kumaon and Garhwal, the twin administrative divisions of the hill state.