Cong’s no-confidence motion in MP assembly ‘parallel session’

BHOPAL: The Opposition failed to bring the noconfidence motion in the state assembly in a proper manner. Leader of the Opposition Ajay Singh himself had said that the noconfidence motion ...was primary.

VISHWAS SARANG, Minister of state for cooperatives

The Opposition Congress on Thursday pushed a no-confidence motion in a ‘parallel monsoon session’ during their sit-in protest on the premises of the state assembly alleging a power scam worth ₹2 lakh crore under the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

The Opposition has been protesting since Tuesday’s early adjournment of the House. It alleged that the government and the speaker adjourned the House to avoid facing the no-confidence motion.

Thursday’s parallel ‘monsoon session’ was held outside the House with blindfolded MLA Yadvendra Singh playing the role of the speaker and several other MLAs on chairs playing the role of treasury bench members. Leader of the Opposition Ajay Singh led the MLAs.

The party claimed that the state government has been purchasing power from private power companies for higher prices while the output of government power plants was being reduced deliberately.

Elaborating, Congress MLA Jeetu Patwari said the government picked up only 127 lakh tonne coal in 2017-18 against the allocation of 216 lakh tonne coal, thus reducing the plant load factor (PLF) of the government’s companies while power was purchased from private companies at prices up to ₹13 per unit.

The party alleged various other scams related to Simhastha (a religious fair held every 12 years), public health, e-tenders and irregularities in the spending of the Bundelkhand package, among others.

The session will continue on Friday during which, the MLAs said they would discuss the no-confidence motion.

Reacting to the charges, minister of state for cooperatives, Vishwas Sarang, said they were baseless.

There was complete transparency in the functioning of the government, he added.

“The Opposition failed to bring the no-confidence motion in the state assembly in a proper manner. Leader of the Opposition Ajay Singh himself had said that the no-confidence motion submitted by his colleague Ramnivas Rawat as primary. Hence, it was his admission that they couldn’t present the motion in a proper manner. In fact, there is a lot of groupism in the Congress and each faction doesn’t trust the other.”