Posts Tagged ‘Ishwardas Rohani’
After Bhopal Raj Bhavan’s alleged involvement in Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s infamous VYAPAM scam became public, Congress leader and former Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Singh suggested that Governor Ram Naresh Yadav should resign. Ajay Singh was a bit too late in seeking Yadav’s resignation, like his father Arjun Singh who could never take a political decision at the right time.
The right time for seeking Yadav’s resignation was when the Governor had, by his inexplicable action, lowered the dignity of the Constitution, brought to disrepute the office of the Governor and created embarrassment for the Congress party, to which he himself belongs, on the eve of the November 2013 Assembly elections. The conduct of most of the occupants of the Bhopal Raj Bhavan in the past couple of decades has, sadly, been less than exemplary.
The Assembly was abruptly adjourned while a Congress-sponsored motion of lack of confidence in the BJP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan government was pending. The motion, levelling serious charges of corruption against Chouhan and his family members and close relatives, was admitted on July 9 (2013) and the time allotted for a discussion in the House. When it was taken up for a debate on July 11, Speaker Ishwardas Rohani called Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh to speak. However, Deputy Leader of Opposition Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi stood up and said that he was opposed to the no-confidence motion. The BJP members were promptly on their feet hailing him and creating loud noise. The Congress members took a little time to recover from this sudden shock and denounce Chaturvedi.
In the free-for-all that followed, minister of legislative affairs Narottam Mishra moved a motion for an adjournment of the House. Speaker Rohani promptly adjourned the House sine die, leaving Opposition members flabbergasted. Top BJP leaders led by chief minister Chouhan hugged and lionised Chaturvedi and took him outside where Chaturvedi announced before media persons that he was joining the BJP. Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh (who lacks the acumen of his late father) made the tactical mistake of not opposing the motion moved by Narottam Mishra for an adjournment of the House. That, though, was a minor thing.
The Congress then petitioned Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. The Governor had two options before him. He could prorogue the Assembly under Article 174(2) of the Constitution or he could send a message to the House under Article 175(2) for the consideration of the pending motion. Article 175(2) says: “The Governor may send messages to the House or Houses of the Legislature of the State, whether with respect to a Bill pending in the Legislature or otherwise, and a House to which any message is so sent shall with all convenient despatch consider any matter required by the message to be taken into consideration.”
This is followed by Rule 20 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha which says: “Message by Governor: – Where a message from the Governor for the Vidhan Sabha under Article 175(2) of the Constitution is received by the Speaker, he shall read the message to the House and give necessary directions in regard to the procedure that shall be followed for the consideration of the matters referred to in the message. In giving these directions the Speaker shall be empowered to suspend or vary the rules to such extent as it may be necessary to do so.”
Instead of acting in either way, the Governor started consultations with all and sundry, the lawyers and Constitutional experts included. He also sought opinion from the Advocate-General who has his office at Jabalpur. Congress leaders met him several times as did the leaders of some other parties. He had meetings with chief minister Chouhan and even called Speaker Rohani. In between, he made a trip to Delhi leaving an impression behind that he had gone to take directions. On return from Delhi, too, he continued to dither.
Then on July 26, he wrote a brief letter to the chief minister suggesting that the Assembly session should be reconvened. It was a vague and illiterate letter because the Executive does not come between Governor (who is part and head of the Legislature) and the Assembly. Moreover, the Governor did not cite under which provision of the Constitution or any other law he had written to the chief minister. Predictably, the chief minister did not take any notice of the letter. The whole thing came as a huge embarrassment to the Congress which was much too confident of debating the no-confidence motion in the House with the intervention of the Governor.
Rohani’s act in abruptly adjourning the Assembly was reprehensible enough, but what Governor Yadav did was most abominable. Instead of taking a decision either way as mandated by the Constitution, he started dilly-dallying and reportedly making compromises with chief minister Chouhan, casting thus an indelible slur on the institution of Governor.
BJP’s two faces on CAG report
Posted on: December 22, 2012
The sanctity of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reports for the BJP depends upon whether the party is in power or in opposition. At the Centre the BJP is in opposition and it not only insists on a discussion on CAG reports but stalls Parliament to have its way. In Madhya Pradesh the party is in power and so its approach is different.
When the opposition Congress sought a discussion on the CAG report in the Assembly on Thursday, Speaker Ishwardas Rohani said that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is constituted to specifically examine the CAG report. The not-so-vigorous demand by the Opposition members had little effect on the attitude of the Speaker or the treasury benches. The House, though, had to be adjourned for a brief period a couple of times. The CAG report for Madhya Pradesh for the year, ended March 2011, was placed in the House earlier in the week.
The reluctance of the BJP government to discuss the CAG report in the House can have only one reason. The report exposes the arbitrary manner in which the Government has been conducting its business, little caring for the lapses pointed out by the CAG in various works. The CAG report says that the authorities are required to comply with the observations contained in the inspection reports, promptly rectify the defects/omissions and report their compliance to the Auditors “within four weeks of their receipt”. As of June 30, 2011, 12.737 inspection reports were outstanding against civil departments of the State. Of these, 7102 were pending for more than five years.
Rs 4000 crore loss
The report estimates a loss of over Rs 4000 crore to the exchequer because of the wrong-doings of the State government. Perhaps the most arbitrary decisions were taken by the government in the matters of acquisition and allotment of lands.
The land has been chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s first love and he has been obliging his friends and party men generously. At least in one case, his government had committed a fraud by seeking objections (as required under the law) for different khasra numbers while actually acquiring land with different khasra numbers. He had almost allotted this prime land on the banks of river Narmada to his party colleague and Rajya Sabha member Anil Madhav Dave but for the ruckus created by a minister at the cabinet meeting. The chief minister had to hurriedly cancel the allotment process. The minister was, naturally, thrown out of the cabinet and later he quit the party also.
CAG notes that centralised database on acquisition of private land, payment of compensation to land losers, custody and allotment of government land had not been maintained at the State level. The Government has not prescribed a uniform and transparent method for calculation of market value of land. CAG noticed that market value of land was prima facie erroneously determined by different methods leading to under-assessment of compensation of Rs 6.91 crore in 46 cases and excess payment of compensation of Rs 12.76 crore in 23 cases.
“Avoidable expenditure” of Rs 5.88 crore was incurred on payment of additional compensation due to delay, from one to 22 months, in passing award.
Similarly, there was no comprehensive and transparent policy for allotment of Government land which would have facilitated equal opportunity to every desirable entity. “Substantial revenue of Rs 33.66 crore was lost” due to allotment of Government land to different bodies and organisations at lower rates in contravention of the prescribed provisions. Realisation of revenue was withheld due to absence of time limit for finalisation of lease cases in case of advance possession and initiating recovery proceedings against the defaulters.
CAG finds the management of Government land also “poor”. It says that land measuring 1979.594 hectares, acquired by Industry Department, was not utilised for industrial development. No periodic physical verification of Government lands was conducted as required. In four districts, 171.076 hectares of Government land was not utilised by the allottees for purposes mentioned in allotment orders and no action was taken to resume the lands. In 12 test-checked districts, 13152 encroachment cases were not finalised.
The absence of consolidated details of Government land allotted/leased at the apex level was, according to the CAG report, attributed by the revenue department (which is the modal department for the purpose) to non-submission of monthly progress report of land acquired and allotted in the district by the district revenue authorities in spite of repeated instructions issued by the department. It is apparent that the department has not attached due seriousness to “non-availability of such vital information and its negative impact on governance in a sensitive and people-centric matter like land”. The CAG noted the absence of a “rational policy” for allotment of Government land.
In the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), the CAG found underutilisation of the funds, provided by the Centre in its implementation. The targets, too, had not been achieved. It says that till March 2011, the Government of India had sanctioned Rs 9989.84 crore under the PMGSY and the State government was able to spend only Rs 7136.30 crore. The PMGSY is a 100 per cent centrally funded programme.
The programme envisaged provision of rural road connectivity to 8459 villages in the State by construction of 37,021 km all-weather black topped roads. Against a target of 8459 roads, only 6229 roads were constructed as of 2010-11. The Audit report specifically notes that the planning for the road work was deficient. Approved road lengths were reduced by 557.84 km resulting in excess drawl of Central assistance under PMGSY to the extent of Rs 103.20 crore. Expenditure on 42 “partially constructed roads and substantially abandoned roads” led to a wasteful expenditure of Rs 1.60 crore. There was excess payment of Rs 6.99 crore to the contractors due to inflated measurement of work done. Besides, Rs 54.61 crore was pending recovery against several contractors. There was violation of contractual provisions by way of non-insurance of roads, resulting in undue financial aid of Rs 1.19 crore to the contractors.
Suicidal act of Congress in MP
Posted on: August 18, 2012
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly set within a span of nine days two dubious precedents. On July 18, it terminated the membership of two Congress MLAs, Chaudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi and Kalpana Parulekar. On July 27, it restored their membership by revoking its July 18 decision.
Whether Chaturvedi and Parulekar did get beck the status and privileges of MLAs was not clear till today because the Assembly secretariat or the two Congress leaders had not received any communication from the Election Commission. After terminating their membership of the House on July 18, the Assembly secretariat had promptly communicated the decision to the Election Commission which had immediately notified their constituencies as vacant and the two were declared ineligible to vote in the Presidential election the following day.
The exercise, however, does bring to the fore that the leaders of the ruling BJP treat the Assembly more like their family shop than an institution created by the Constitution with certain rules and regulations which everyone is expected to follow. The Congress, in the process, suffered a debasing setback which it will not find easy to overcome in near future.
On July 16, the first day of the monsoon session of the Assembly, the Congress members created a ruckus demanding a discussion on their adjournment motion on the rampant corruption in the State in the light of the Income-Tax Department raids on the premises of Dilip Suryavanshi and Sudhir Sharma and their closeness to the chief minister’s household. Prodded by the chief minister, Speaker Ishwardas Rohani rejected their demand. Rohani, too, was worried about his own skeletons following the publication, a few days earlier, of a State CID report giving details of his prolonged business association with top Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) leader and a SIMI patron Abdul Razzak (now in custody) and his son Sartaj, both notorious criminals of Jabalpur from where Rohani hails.
The next day saw some Congress MLAs sit on dharna in front of Rohani’s chamber while others continued their disruptive activities in the House where the ruling BJP members had tried to commence the proceedings by asking one of them to preside. However undesirable it might have been, there was nothing unprecedented in this. Even the gherao of the Speaker was not a new thing. The BJP members had held a similar gherao of then (Congress) Speaker Shrinivas Tiwari on January 20, 2001.
On July 18, Legislative Affairs Minister Narottam Mishra moved a resolution seeking termination of the membership of Chaturvedi and Parulekar who, Mishra claimed, had brought to disgrace the House and the chair by their unruly behaviour in the House the previous day. Rohani asked the House if they supported the resolution and the BJP members shouted “yes”; Rohani declared that the two ceased to be the members of the Assembly forthwith and adjourned the House sine die in contravention of the Rules of the House. This took barely a minute.
Rule violated
Rohani violated the law and rules for taking action against a member of the House. Such a drastic action (termination of the membership) was taken without giving a notice to the members concerned and without referring it to the committee of privileges constituted for the specific purpose of examining the complaints against the members and without allowing a discussion in the House. Even the tyrannical Khap Panchayats in Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh go through the farce of hearing the other side before announcing their pre-determined verdict. Rohani did not even deem that necessary.
The monsoon session was to last till July 27 but Rohani adjourned the House sine die on July 18 for which he was not authorised. Rule 12-B of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly clearly states that “the House shall not be adjourned sine die on a day in advance of the last sitting of the House fixed for the session except on a motion made by the Leader of the House and adopted by the House”.
In the case of a “grave disorder arising in the House”, Rule 266 permits the Speaker to “suspend the sitting of the House till a later hour on the same day or adjourn the House to the next sitting in the same session”.
Speaker Rohani and chief minister Chauhan realised the mistake soon afterwards as their action was strongly disapproved by their own party leaders. Chaturvedi and Parulekar challenged in the Madhya Pradesh High Court on July 19 the termination of their membership of the Assembly. The massive rally held by the Congress in Bhopal on July 20 further unnerved the BJP leaders. The police used lathi-charge, teargas shells and water cannons to crush the demonstration, injuring many of the protestors. All the Congress MLAs later handed over their resignations from the Assembly to AICC general secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh affairs B K Hariprasad who announced that a decision on the resignations would be taken after consultations with the high command.
There was an anti-climax two days later when Chaturvedi and Parulekar sent regret letters to Rohani following meetings between Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh and Deputy Speaker Harvansh Singh (who also belongs to Congress) with chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Speaker Ishwardas Rohani. B K Hariprasad expressed his surprise and some Congress leaders including former minister Hajarilal Raghuvanshi described it a retrograde step.
In a special session of the Assembly convened on July 27, Narottam Mishra moved a resolution seeking revocation of the July 18 decision of the Assembly; the BJP members shouted “yes” and Speaker Rohani announced “restoration” of the membership of Chaturvedi and Parulekar — all took less than a minute. Later the two “restored” Congress members withdrew their petition from the State High Court.
Chauhan and Rohani have thus averted a possible embarrassment in the High Court and an agitation against them on corruption issues. The Congress has lost the momentum it had built with the expulsion of its two MLAs and the July 20 rally. The grapevine has it that the resources of Dilip Suryavanshi and Sudhir Sharma played a vital role in bringing about the anti-climax.
MP Speaker’s duplicity
Posted on: March 3, 2012
The manner in which Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar has been arrested and jailed does little credit to the police, the government and the judiciary in Madhya Pradesh. It also exposes once again the duplicity of Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani who has brought disgrace to the House many times by his partisan behaviour.
Parulekar’s offence is not such that the courts should repeatedly refuse bail to her. The police, which was once described by a judge of the Madhya Pradesh High Court as the “criminal force in uniform”, has not so far explained how Parulekar has come to be treated as the main and only accused.
One afternoon in early February, the CID officers had swooped on the house of Parulekar at Mahidpur in Ujjain district, arrested her, brought her to Bhopal and produced her at the residence of a judicial magistrate in the night. The magistrate remanded her to judicial custody. The sessions court had refused to reverse the judicial magistrate’s order.
Parulekar had, for all that is known, distributed in the House and then at the Assembly press room during the last session towards the end of November a photograph showing Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar in the RSS uniform. Naolekar claimed that the photograph was morphed; the police registered an FIR and entrusted the case to the CID “for investigation”.
Who did the police or CID get the offending photograph from? Surely, it was not from Parulekar. Why has the person, from whose possession the photograph was recovered by the police, not been made an accused? If someone took the photograph to the police to lodge a complaint that his feelings had been hurt by seeing Lokayukta Naolekar in RSS uniform, why did not the police reveal the name of the complainant and the nature of his grievance? Why does the police keep the FIR a closely guarded secret? Then regrettably, how did the judges allow themselves to become party to this dirty game of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Lokayukta Naolekar? These are some of the questions which Parulekar’s incarceration has thrown up.
The matter of Parulekar’s arrest and incarceration was vigorously raised in the Assembly by Congress members on Wednesday, the first day of the budget session, when Arif Aquil sought a discussion on his notice of breach of privilege because the police had violated the sanctity of the House by arresting the MLA without the consent of the Speaker. He was supported by other members of the party. The Speaker guiltily looked to minister of legislative affairs Narottam Mishra who pronounced that Parulekar had committed a crime and had accordingly been arrested and jailed. Moreover, he said, the matter was sub judice. (Does a matter become sub judice simply because someone has been arrested and jailed while no investigation has been completed and no charge sheet presented?)
Deputy Leader of Opposition Chaudhary Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi even quoted M N Kaul and S L Shakdher, authorities on parliamentary practices, to point out that the entire premises formed part of the House and a member having done something on the premises could not be arrested without first seeking permission from the Speaker. Rohani was not impressed. He, however, got the escape route as dictated by Narottam Mishra and refused a discussion and, following the uproar that ensued, adjourned the House for the day.
Rohani, facing allegations of having acquired properties worth over Rs 300 crore in Jabalpur, shows concern for his authority only if it suits his interest. When a former Lokayukta had initiated investigation of a complaint of financial irregularities by two Assembly secretariat officials, Rohani lost no time in sending a notice of breach of privilege to the Lokayukta and five officials of the Lokayukta Organisation who had helped the Lokayukta in the preliminary investigation.
Rohani had received support for his stand from Yagya Dutt Sharma, who was Speaker during the Arjun Singh regime but had later joined the BJP. His view was that registration of a case against two officials of the Assembly Secretariat and service of notices on them by the Lokayukta amounted to challenging the rights of the Speaker. The Assembly and the staff working there are under the jurisdiction of the Speaker and the Lokayukta had encroached upon the rights of the Speaker by starting action against the officials without the Speaker’s permission. Another former Speaker, Shrinivas Tiwari, had felt that the staff working in the Assembly secretariat did not enjoy the privilege. It was a different matter in the case of Speaker and members.
The Lokayukta, too, had quoted from the “Practice and Procedure of Parliament” by M N Kaul and S L Shakdher to point out that the privileges of Parliament are granted to members only so that they may be able to perform their duties in Parliament without let or hindrance.
What Parulekar did was on the Assembly premises. Speaker Rohani, who remembered his jurisdiction and authority in the case of Assembly secretariat employees, is looking the other way in the case of a member. A fine instance of duplicity of a person holding constitutional position!
The chronic deviousness of Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani was once again at play when the Opposition Congress party submitted a motion “expressing want of confidence” in the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government, along with the relevant charges against the council of ministers. Rohani could not stall a discussion on the motion but he did certainly succeed in blunting the sharp edge of the allegations by his machinations. This, though, was not the first time that Rohani had resorted to disingenuousness in conducting the proceedings.
Rule 143 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha mandates that “if the Speaker is of the opinion that the motion is in order, he shall read the motion to the House and shall request those members who are in favour of leave being granted to rise in their places, and if not less than one-tenth of the total number of members rise accordingly, the Speaker shall intimate that the leave is granted.” Then the Speaker shall fix a day for taking up the motion.
Rohani did not follow the procedure as laid down in Rule 143 but just announced that the motion would be taken up a week later, on November 28 and 29. His subsequent actions indicated that Rohani probably did it for having his personal negotiations with the chief minister. A prompt discussion in the House over the admissibility of the motion could have deprived him much of the advantage.
On November 28, instead of inviting a debate on the motion, Rohani entertained the ruling party’s views on the admissibility of the motion. The treasury benches were already prepared to raise objections to certain references in the charge sheet to what they claimed related to the Chauhan government’s first term. The Opposition members, on the other hand, argued that the matters raised in the charge sheet were very much relevant even today.
Even as the two sides were debating the issue, Rohani read out his five-page ruling, which he had already prepared and brought to the House. It was like a judge delivering the judgement even before the prosecution and the defence had concluded their arguments. He ruled that the issues related to the previous term of Shivraj Singh Chauhan could not be taken up in the motion.
There were some issues which Rohani appeared much too eager to avoid in order to spare embarrassment to the chief minister. The lack of experience of Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh in procedural matters resulted in this setback to the Opposition. Instead of pinpointing a few names and dates, the issues could easily have been rephrased.
The charge-sheet, for instance, refers to the origin of the “dumper scam” involving the chief minister and his wife Sadhna Singh. It did originate in the first term of Chauhan but it has not yet finally been closed. For instance, the farmers whose lands were forcibly taken for handing over to the JP Associates (which later gifted the dumpers to Sadhna Singh Chauhan) were fired upon by the police and the matter is still far from settled. A slight rephrasing of the allegation could have foiled Rohani’s machinations.
Another allegation, objected to by the treasury benches and endorsed by the Speaker, related to Ajay Vishnoi who was minister of health and family welfare in Chauhan’s first term and had presided over a massive bungling of public money in the department. Ajay Vishnoi is now minister of animal husbandry. The allegation could have been easily rephrased to read that minister of health Narottam Mishra is trying to hush up the bungling in the department by keeping at key positions some of the officials indicted by agencies like Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for misappropriation of funds. Then there is the huge bungling in the purchase of electricity which started soon after the Chauhan government was formed and is still continuing.
By avoiding adherence to Rule 143, Rohani could spare only a little bit of embarrassment to the chief minister but he could not provide the same protection to other members of the council of ministers. The charge-sheet levels categorical charges of corruption in various departments. Instead of coming up with satisfactory explanations during the debate which extended to four days, the ministers had, instead, been indulging in gutter language about the Opposition members; and in some cases about their fathers and sons also. Not surprisingly, some of the Opposition members also retorted in the same language.
In nutshell, the no-confidence motion points out that nearly three dozen promises made by the BJP in its 2008 election manifesto have not been fulfilled; raids by the Lokayukta Organisation, EOW and Income-Tax Department on the work places and residences of close relatives of ministers have yielded huge amounts of unaccounted money; the officials indicted by the Lokayukta, EOW and I-T Department are being protected by the chief minister by withholding sanction to prosecute them; the law and order situation in the State has reached its nadir and there is massive corruption in the purchase of electricity.
Illegal mining is flourishing on a massive scale with the cooperation of the minister of public works department, the minister of state for mining, the minister of forests and the minister of environment. Lands worth crores of rupees have been allotted at nominal prices to the RSS and its affiliate organisations. A conspiracy was hatched to mortgage the lands of the farmers abroad. The corruption in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) from the Panchayat level to the State level has established a new record.
Digvijay Singh has unwittingly played the BJP’s game in Madhya Pradesh and helped chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan sidetrack an issue which could have become quite embarrassing for his government.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Singh issued on July 17 what he called “black paper” (as opposed to the white paper which is issued by the government) alleging serious bungling in the purchase of wheat in the State. The ten-page “black paper” estimates the scam amounting to around Rs 500 crore. The same day the AICC general secretary clashed with the BJP/BJYM workers, who were protesting against his observations on Sanghi terrorists at Ujjain where Digvijay Singh had gone to have darshan of Mahakal. The photographs showed the former chief minister chasing the BJP/BJYM activists. He was also reported to have slapped some protestor.
That, however, is beside the point as is the real intention of the protestors. Germane to the point is the complete shift of focus of the party and the media from the Rs 500-crore wheat scam of the Chauhan government to the BJP-Digvijay Singh clash. It became a prestige issue for the Congress party, as a party leader pointed out. While the party workers led by PCC chief Kantilal Bhuria held demonstrations and burnt effigies outside the Assembly, the party MLAs led by Ajay Singh expressed their loyalty to the AICC general secretary by creating ruckus inside the House.
The Congress moved an adjournment motion on the alleged attack on the former chief minister. Speaker Ishwardas Rohani, who in the past had adopted detestable tactics and had even gone to the extent of adjourning the House ahead of the schedule to avoid a discussion on the Opposition-sponsored motions on the matters of public interest, readily adopted the motion for a discussion. The chief minister was only too happy to have a discussion on the issue on the following day.
So, the House remained occupied with Digvijay Singh for another day. Since such debates are based less on facts and more on emotions, Chauhan with his demagoguery carried the day. In the midst of all this hullaballoo, Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies Paras Chandra Jain issued a facile statement in the Assembly claiming that complete transparency had been maintained in the purchase of wheat, that action had been taken wherever irregularities had been detected and that the Leader of Opposition had made the allegations on hearsay. The government thus got away without a full discussion on the issue and without dealing with each of the questions raised in the “black paper”.
Some of the salient points made in the “black paper” are:
• The government had declared Chhatarpur and Tikamgarh districts as drought-affected. How come it procured lakhs of tonnes of wheat from this area?
• Govind Moolaji runs a canteen in Harda. He owns around ten acres of land. The government purchased from him more than 800 quintals of wheat at the support price of Rs 10 lakh. According to the agricultural standards, Harda district produces a maximum of 20 quintals of wheat per acre. How was Moolaji able to show his excessive produce?
• Ramkrishna Patel is a member of Fanwani Marketing Society of Sihora tehsil of Jabalpur district. He received the payment of Rs 5 lakh for selling his produce to the Society. A few days later, Patel received another cheque of Rs 5 lakh from the Sihora Marketing Society. He is not even a member of the Sihora Marketing Society but wheat was sold there in his name. A couple of days later a trader approached him and wanted the cheque to be given to him. Patel, however, refused to hand over the cheque to the trader but returned it to the Sihora Marketing Society, with his letter.
• The caretaker of the Civil Supplies Corporation godown at Ashoknagar had refused to accept 500 quintals of wheat as he had found that it was from the previous season. The sample tests had also shown it to be old. The wheat was sent on behalf of Ashoknagar Dogra Purchase Centre. Under pressure from the minister, the officers took another sample and declared it fresh. The District Panchayat president and others who were present when the old wheat was accepted as fresh made a complaint to the Collector who promised an inquiry. But no inquiry has so far been ordered.
• The Rajgarh Warehouse sent 360 bags of wheat in a truck on June 25 to the Byaora Warehouse but only 300 bags had reached there.
• Wheat purchased from Uttar Pradesh was shown as having been purchased from the local farmers in Pichhor and Khaniadhana tehsils of Shivpuri district.
• In a spot check the Raisen Collector seized 375 bags of rotten wheat (purchased at support price) from the Gairatganj Seva Sahakari Samiti in Raisen district. Similarly, 500 quintals of rotten wheat was discovered at the Sahakari Seva Samiti of Mungawali tehsil in Guna district also. More than 2200 quintals of rotten wheat was seized in Chhatarpur, Raisen and Narsinghpur districts in May. The “black paper” lists instances of large scale bungling in weighing and transport also.
Jain Muni invited to MP Assembly
Posted on: August 3, 2010
Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani, much criticised for conducting the House proceedings arbitrarily and often in violation of the rules, has set a new precedent by inviting a religious leader to preach to the members on the Assembly premises. Sant Tarun Sagar, the Jain Muni, did some plain talking when he told the people’s representatives led by Shivraj Singh Chauhan that 80 per cent of the officers were corrupt while 90 per cent of them were misusing their position.
However, the Muni also made some controversial observations; like, he suggested an amendment in the Constitution to allow only the graduates to enter Parliament or Assembly. Looking towards the chief minister, the Jain Muni said, “you have Vidhan Sabha and I have Dharma Sabha, let the two merge and form Samvidhan Sabha. If we join hands, it will be good for the people of the State”.
The Jain Muni’s controversial observations apart, the demands are now being made that the Speaker should similarly invite the religious leaders of the Hindus, Muslims and Christians also to preach to the members of the Assembly.
Chauhan’s Swarnim folly
Posted on: May 18, 2010
What Sonia Gandhi could not do has been done by Shivraj Singh Chauhan: uniting the warring factions in the Congress in Madhya Pradesh. It was a sight to behold the Congress chieftains, who had been picking apart against each other mainly through media for years, marching side by side in the scorching heat with mercury hovering around 43 degrees Celsius and holding day-long dharnas — for four days consecutively — to expose the corruption-ridden regime of Chauhan.
The provocation was provided by Chauhan’s insistence on going ahead with a special session of the Assembly to exclusively discuss his concept of “Swarnim (golden) Madhya Pradesh” – irrespective of the rebuff from President Pratibha Devisingh Patil who was persuaded by Chauhan and Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani to address the special session but had, on learning the nature of the session, sent her refusal.
The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) has claimed that this type of session is not sanctioned by the Constitutional provisions and the Rules do not permit suspension of normal business of the Assembly, like Question Hour, Calling-Attention notices and discussions on urgent matters of public importance, for the entire session: only the House has the power to suspend a scheduled business on some special occasion.
Chauhan, however, believes, like Hitler’s minister of propaganda Paul Joseph Goebbels, in iterating and reiterating something so incessantly that his audience loses perspective of the real issues. In the present case, the chief minister went on harping on his concern for the development of the State and on the necessity of a special session of the Assembly for preparing a roadmap of development. How else could the State be developed? Chauhan also wrote a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi requesting her to direct her party’s MLAs in Madhya Pradesh to attend the special session for the development of the State. Wide publicity of the contents of the letter was ensured in the media.
The voice of those who raised questions about the Constitutional validity of the special session or tried to cite the deplorable record of Chauhan’s four-and-half-year rule was drowned in the clamour for special session for development. Not only the BJP leaders and activists but others also joined in the clamour. Some intellectuals, who had enjoyed privileges during the Congress regime of Digvijay Singh, started giving advice to the Congress through newspaper columns to cooperate with Chauhan for the development of the State.
Sponsored stories started appearing in the Bhopal print media that the CLP was divided on the issue: while some were opposed to the special session, the others were in favour of joining it as the interest of the State was involved. As the date of the session neared, it became clear that it was part of Chauhan’s propaganda machinery and that his bluff was not holding this time. Some ministers, who figure in the lists of the Lokayukta, were deputed to persuade Congress legislators to attend the special session. They apparently did not succeed.
The Congress devised its own strategy at the CLP meeting to counter Chauhan’s attempts at self-glorification by diverting the public attention from the pressing problems of the State. In the absence of Leader of CLP Jamuna Devi because of her prolonged health problems, deputy leader Rakesh Singh Chaudhary presided. Rakesh Singh has of late been giving a lot of trouble to the Chauhan government, not only during the Assembly sessions (where Speaker Rohani had unashamedly been flouting the Rules and established norms to bail out Chauhan) and also through his queries under the Right to Information Act (RTI). The BSP MLAs also decided to go along with the Congress.
As the special session of the Assembly started on May 11, the Congress MLAs marched from Birla Mandir to the Assembly building and sat on dharna near the Mahatma Gandhi statue on the Assembly, shouting slogans against the corrupt BJP regime which has failed to address to the people’s problems. They also shouted slogans that a session was meaningless unless the problems of drinking water, electricity, law and order and corruption were allowed to be discussed. It was a rare unity seen in the CLP which has hardly ever displayed a semblance of unity on any issue.
More significant was a protest demonstration on similar issues organised by the Congress party under the leadership of PCC chief Suresh Pachauri in the city. Pachauri has marked aversion for some of the senior party MLAs and the sentiment is suitably reciprocated. To chalk out a party programme to synchronise with the CLP programme was something unheard of during Pachauri’s leadership. But on May 11 the Congress activists formed a human chain and held meetings in protest against the growing corruption in the State. In his speeches Pachauri fully supported the decision of the CLP to boycott the sham special session of the Assembly.
After the Assembly hours, the Congress legislators gathered at the Iqbal Maidan and held mock Assembly there where the problems of the people were discussed while the Pachauri-led organisation held corner meetings to highlight the distress of the people during the BJP regime. Pachauri launched a State-wide signature campaign against Chauhan’s corrupt regime. The CLP and the Congress organisation have chalked out their programmes for the four days the special session lasts.
The protests by a seemingly united Congress against Chauhan’s misrule seemed to have jolted the BJP leadership. By the close of day 2, Chauhan was a shattered man, as were his well wishers like Speaker Ishwardas Rohani. Their extreme frustration was reflected in a censure motion the “House” adopted against a Congress MLA on a somewhat innocuous issue.
While the ministers and ruling party MLAs were discussing Chauhan’s concept of development inside the “House”, the Congress and BSP MLAs were sitting on dharna outside. As BJP MLA Lalita Yadav, who was slightly late, was passing by the dharna site, Congress MLA Kalpana Parulekar remarked how would there be a Swarnim Madhya Pradesh if she came so late. Panchilal Meda, another Congress MLA, commented she might have been delayed at the beauty parlour.
Lalita went inside and all seemed normal. Just before the day’s sitting was to be over, suddenly there was a ruckus among BJP MLAs over the gross insult to the honourable member by a Congress MLA and demands for lodging an FIR and also bringing a notice of breach of privilege against the “erring” Congress MLA were raised. The chief minister promptly moved a motion censuring the “erring” Congress MLA and it was adopted by the House unanimously. After that the House was adjourned.
Later in his chamber, Speaker Rohani called a video cameraman and started sobbing in front of the camera over the hurt he had felt because of the humiliation of the woman MLA.
Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker Ishwardas Rohani made a sort of history in the recently concluded budget session. He allowed the session to last its full scheduled term, that is, till March 26. The reason: the House had to adopt legislation to increase the wages and perks of the privileged few— the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, members of the council of ministers and, of course, the MLAs. Naturally, a measure of such vital importance could not be postponed till the next session.
The House, in fact, sat beyond the normal time on March 26 because of some technical problems which delayed presentation of the legislation in the Assembly for its approval. Perhaps the Speaker and the chief minister were not sure if the problems would be sorted out that very day because the presentation of the legislation was not mentioned in the day’s printed agenda. A palpable tension was visible among the honourable representatives of the people as they waited in the House for the three bills to arrive with the Governor’s signature; money bills require the Governor’s prior approval.
The House heaved a collective sigh of relief, as the word came late in the afternoon that the Governor had signed the proposed bills. The formalities preceding the presentation of legislation in the Assembly were completed at break-neck speed and a supplementary agenda sheet was distributed to the members. The three bills were presented in the House a little before 7 in the evening and adopted unanimously within minutes. Another record created by Rohani, this time with the fullest cooperation of the members of all parties.
Well, one more record was created in this session — and that by some of the Opposition members. As they came to know, a day earlier, of the government’s hectic efforts to get the bills okayed in this session, they shouted slogans in the Assembly corridors hailing finance minister Raghavji – even those who had been critical of Raghavji joined in shouting “Raghavji Zindabad”. The increase in the wages/allowances of MLAs has been effected on the recommendations of a committee which was headed by Deputy Speaker Harvansh Singh (Congress) who was once dropped by Digvijay Singh from his cabinet following serious allegations of corruption against him.
The legitimate earnings of the ministers and legislators per month will go up considerably under the provisions of the new legislation. The Speaker will now get Rs 60,300 in place of Rs 45,000 and the chief minister will receive Rs 65,000 instead of Rs 9,000 (which came to around Rs 30,000 with allowances). The increased wages for other categories are, with the present wages given in the brackets: Deputy Speaker Rs 57,300 (Rs 42,000), Leader of the Opposition Rs 56,300 (Rs 45,000), MLA Rs 50,250 (Rs 35,000), cabinet minister Rs 62,000 (Rs 9000), and Minister of State Rs 60,000 (Rs 9,000). The pension of the former MLAs has been increased from Rs 9,000 to Rs 15,000 per month while their family pension goes up from Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per month. Plus there are sundry allowances for each category.
Hardly half a dozen other States can now claim that the people’s representatives there get as much legitimate money per month as those in Madhya Pradesh.
ndsharma's blog 
House light construction site is one of the best site if anyone interested on construction j have to must visit…
[…] MP: police turn collaborators in crimes against women […]
Reblogged this on ndsharma's blog.
Reblogged this on ndsharma's blog.
Reblogged this on ndsharma's blog.