Congress walks out from the House

SHIMLA : Congress members walked out from the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha on Monday, protesting against the “speaker’s refusal” to extend time to an opposition legislator who had raised issues related to tourism development.

Speaking on the cut motion on the last day of the budget session, Sunder Singh Thakur, Congress legislator from Kullu, raised the issue of the proposed ropeway at Rohtang and the “declining” tourist flow to the state.

Treasury and opposition members sparred when speaker Rajeev Bindal urged Sunder Singh Thakur to wind up his speech within the time limit. After a brief argument, the opposition members staged a walk out.

CM Jai Ram Thakur said the walkout was condemnable. He said the opposition members were misleading the house by presenting wrong facts. The allegation about changing six directors in the tourism department was wrong, he said.

CPI (M) legislator Rakesh Singha stressed on need to find out the reason behind the decline in tourism development rate in the state from 10% to 6.6%.

Earlier, the vidhan sabha witnessed uproarious scenes after a Congress lawmaker accused former Board of Cricket Control of India president and Lok Sabha member Anurag Thakur of usurping sports in the hill state.

Sri Naina Devi legislator Ram Lal Thakur (Cong) accused the previous BJP government of favouring the Hamirpur Lok Sabha member-led HPCA.

Ram Lal Thakur alleged that the government had allocated a prime land in Dharamshala for construction of a cricket stadium and a high-end hotel. He said that the government had allocated land to the HPCA for cricket stadium in Nurpur, Kotkhai, Bilaspur and a school ground in Shimla.