By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 5 Feb: In a major development with big implications for state politics, the Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Yashpal Arya, and former leader of the opposition and Congress member Pritam Singh resigned from the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the House, today, levelling serious allegations against the Government.
This happened when, after the proceedings of the House on the first day, the Business Advisory Committee sat to discuss and approve the agenda for tomorrow’s sitting.
The Business Advisory Committee meeting was being held with Speaker Ritu Khanduri Bhushan in the chair.
The proceedings of the House were discussed at the meeting. During the discussion, Yashpal Arya and Pritam Singh resigned as members of the Committee. Both these opposition leaders quit the meeting midway, accusing the government of ignoring the rules on the conduct of the proceedings and flouting the established traditions in this regard. Arya said that the proceedings of the House are governed by the rules. The rules need to be followed during the running of the House. However, the present government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is continuously ignoring and flouting these rules. The opposition members have been seeking adequate time to study the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill which the government is scheduled to table in the House, tomorrow, so that they can participate in the discussion on UCC. Arya accused the government of trying to pressurise the members of the Business Advisory Committee to get its way solely on the basis of its numerical strength. He reminded that the government will table the UCC Bill, tomorrow, and then immediately start the discussion on it without giving time to the Opposition members to study the bill in order to participate in the discussion.
Also, the leader of the opposition party said that the BJP government is not giving due regard to the democratic values and, by attempting to push through the bills, is killing the constitutional values by relying heavily on its numerical strength in the House, ignoring the business rules and traditions of the assembly. This, Arya asserted, is not acceptable to the opposition.
During the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee, the opposition said that the UCC Bill should be placed on the table of the House in the afternoon on 6 February. After that, the discussion on it should have been held on 7 February, so that it could be examined. But, the BJP wants to suppress the voice of opposition MLAs due to its dictatorial attitude. In such a situation, there is no justification for advisory committee meetings.
On the other hand, Speaker Ritu Khanduri said that she was not in a position to say why the Opposition members had resigned. She said that a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee was held and, during the meeting, there was discussion regarding several issues for a long time. Many decisions have been taken regarding the proceedings of the House during the meeting. It has been decided that the UCC Bill will be placed in the morning sitting of the House, tomorrow, and the discussion on the bill will be held thereafter. The Assembly Speaker claimed that the UCC Bill is being eagerly awaited not only by the people of Uttarakhand but also by people across the country.
In the meeting of the Business Advisory Committee, it was decided that the report submitted by the Select Committee regarding the UCC Bill, and the bill giving the benefit of 10 percent horizontal reservation to the statehood agitationists will be placed on the table of the House. After that the discussion on UCC would start. This time there will be no Question Hour during the proceedings of the House. The main reason is that the government wants that UCC should be discussed in a better way, she claimed.
