Accuses Modi sarkar of playing politics of vengeance
New Delhi : The Congress on Wednesday ended Parliament’s budget session with the direct charge of ‘politics of vengeance’ on the Modi government for stopping or starving with refusal of funds to many projects started during the UPA regime.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge had given an adjournment notice to suspend the business and take up this issue and got the opportunity to raise it during the ‘zero hour’ as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan took the policy decision during the session not to suspend the business but allow the members wanting it to raise the matter during the zero hour.
As he started rattling out the projects stalled by the government, the BJP members rose in protest that resulted in a shouting match between the Congress and the ruling party and two adjournments by the Speaker, who kept stopping Kharge from raising many issues but without success as he went on attacking the government while she kept stressing that only a single issue can be raised through the ‘zero hour’ mention.
Kharge started off citing the Rajasthan’s Indira Gandhi lift irrigation channel phase-II launched by the UPA in Nagore with an investment of Rs.3,000 crore that has been paralysed due to no sanction of funds and he finally referred to the Mega food park project of Amethi that was also shut down giving flimsy explanations. Even as the BJP members kept interrupting and Food Processing Miniser Harsimrat Kaur Badal tried to protest in the pandemonium when Kharge started reading out from her statement in the House on Tuesday.
An undeterred Kharge asserted that it was just one of the many mega projects of the UPA regime that have been closed down. He went on to point out how the 1000-bed national cancer institute of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here cleared by the UPA government had been denied funds while 12 medical colleges started by the UPA government in various states have been closed down. He also referred to the railway coach factory proposed in Sonepat had been shot down.
How does the government expect development if it keeps stopping all projects started during the previous government, Kharge asked even as minister Badal kept pleading with the Speaker to let her respond. The Speaker, however, refused to yield, telling her bluntly that all that Kharge did was a reference to her statement and if she has objections to any of his remarks, she batter table a written statement instead of disturbing the House.
Since Kharge had also referred to Rajasthan”s irrigation project, some eight to ten BJP MPs from the state, led by Dushyant Singh, son of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, kept interrupting to assert that the Congress leader was telling a lie to the House, but the Speaker was so enraged by the disturbances that she just did not allow them to speak despite all the requests they made.
