Hoping to corner the Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly during the Winter Session beginning from Thursday, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday ordered the registration of an FIR against two former BSP ministers and 19 officers in connection with a multi-crore construction scandal dating back to the Mayawati government.
Already under fire over its inept handling of cane farmers’ agitation and Muzaffarnagar riots, the ruling Samjwadi Party is planning to blunt the Opposition attack by raising the corruption scandals that took place under the BSP government. The report named former ministers Babu Singh Kushwaha (now with the SP) and Nasimuddin.
The Opposition is expected to raise the cane price issue against the government which refused to hike the minimum price for cane from `280 a quintal. The government was accused of striking a deal with sugar mills, neglecting the farmers’ interests.
BJP president Rajnath Singh visited the bereaved family of Satyapal, who ended his life after failing to pay back the money he had borrowed from the sugar cane corporation.
Senior BJP leader Kalraj Mishra met Governor B L Joshi and demanded that he direct the government to increase the cane price. Mishra warned that the farmers in western UP might start ending their lives as they had been doing in the Bundelkhand region.
The government may draw flak from the Opposition for the now-repealed compensation package for Muslim families displaced by the riots. More than 5,000 people are still languishing in relief camps.
The `90-crore compensation package was challenged in the Supreme Court, which asked the government to withdraw the “partisan” move “which would trigger off reaction from the other community”.
“This is a mockery of the democratic system as the members of the House would not be able to raise the problems and issues related to the public welfare and the government was concerned only with its own agenda,” BJP legislature party leader Hukum Singh said of the government’s decision to go for a brief session.