BHOPAL: After the winding up of the general discussion on the budget, Vidhan Sabha, on Tuesday, took up the discussion on the demands for grants of various departments. But the ministers were grossly short of ruling party MLAs willing to speak on the demands of their departments. The ministers and their aides are chasing MLAs and beseeching them to speak in the House.
The ministers fear that if only the opposition MLAs speak on the demands and the treasury benches keep mum, the discussions would become one-sided. Members of the personal staff of the ministers are briefing the MLAs on the ‘achievements’ of their departments so that they could be highlighted.
On Tuesday, during the discussion on the demands for grants of the general administration, Narmada Valley Development and panchayats and rural development department, most of the speakers were from the opposition benches.
The complete lack of interest of the MLAs in discussions on the demands, which involve hundreds of crores of rupees of tax payers’ money, was evident by the fact that barely 40 to 45 MLAs were present in the 230-member House.
Among ministers, Gopal Bhargava, Narottam Mishra, Gaurishankar Shejwar, Rampal Singh, Maya Singh, Lal Singh Arya and Jayant Mallaiya were present most of the time.
One reason why the ruling party MLAs are not very enthusiastic about praising the government in the House is that in districts, the officers are cold-shouldering them and most of the works recommended by them are not being carried out. The ministers also do not give much weight to the requests of the MLAs and hence they are reluctant to praise them.
