Garhwal Post Bureau
Gairsain, 13 Mar: An unusual situation arose during the ongoing budget session of the state assembly here in the Uttarakhand Assembly in the post lunch sitting, yesterday, when the government briefly appeared to be in a minority due to the absence of several ruling party members.
The Budget Session is currently underway in the Uttarakhand Assembly, with proceedings often continuing till late in the night as members of both the treasury benches and the opposition participate in debates. The government has also introduced several Bills during the session. However, an awkward moment occurred yesterday afternoon when the numerical strength of the government side appeared to fall short in the House.
The situation emerged when the Assembly proceedings resumed at 3 p.m. after the lunch break. At that time, only 11 legislators from the ruling side, including Parliamentary Affairs Minister Subodh Uniyal, were present in the House, while almost all the 19 opposition legislators were in attendance.
The moment triggered light-hearted exchanges. Opposition members even remarked in jest that the doors of the Assembly should be closed as the government had slipped into a minority. When ruling party MLAs still did not return to the House, Speaker Ritu Khanduri was compelled to adopt a stern stance.
Expressing strong displeasure from the Chair, the Speaker termed the situation unfortunate and reprimanded the Parliamentary Affairs Minister. Responding to the Speaker’s remarks, Subodh Uniyal expressed regret in the House and assured that such a situation would not arise again.
Meanwhile, the issue of shortage of cooking gas cylinders was also raised in the Assembly during the Budget discussion. Leader of the Opposition Yashpal Arya said that Uttarakhand has about 29 lakh domestic LPG connections and around 55,000 commercial cylinder connections. He pointed out that commercial cylinders had not been available for the past one or two days, causing inconvenience to people.
Arya further said that Dehradun alone has more than 19,000 such connections. While the government has been claiming that the situation is normal, consumers are now reportedly being asked to book domestic gas cylinders 25 days in advance. He also stated that even booking through mobile applications was not functioning. The Leader of the Opposition asked the government to clarify what plan it had in place to deal with the emerging crisis.
During the debate on the Budget, BJP MLA Vinod Chamoli became emotional while speaking about Gairsain. At that moment, Badrinath MLA Lakhpat Butola interrupted him, remarking that Chamoli had earlier said in Dehradun that Gairsain was too cold and that the Assembly session should not be held there.
