Gairsain: Congress workers staged a dharna at Diwalikhal here on Monday after police prevented them from marching to the legislative assembly to demand a CBI probe into a series of recruitment scams in the state and the Ankita Bhandari murder case.
Led by former chief minister Harish Rawat and PCC president Karan Mahara, nearly a thousand Congress workers started marching towards the assembly from Jungle Chatti but were intercepted by the police at Diwalikhal, where they staged the dharna.
The Budget session of the Uttarakhand Assembly began on Monday with Governor Gurmit Singh’s addressing the House. Opposition members chanted slogans almost throughout Singh’s 16-page address and demanded a CBI probe into alleged recruitment scams in the state.
Congress leader Rawat termed the governor’s address a “document devoid of real content”.
“All burning issues — recruitment scams, shielding of culprits in the Ankita murder case, lathi charge on innocent youths in Dehradun and implicating them in false cases — are staring the government in the face,” he told reporters. Several paper leak cases have rocked Uttarakhand in recent months with more than 40 people already put behind bars in connection with them. The body of Ankita Bhandari (19), who worked at the Vanantara resort in Pauri district, was found in the Cheela canal close to Rishikesh on September 24 last year. She was allegedly killed by Pulkit Arya, resort owner and former BJP leader and state minister Vinod Arya’s son, and two other employees when she resisted their attempts to offer “special services” to customers.
Rawat further said Singh talking to the press after his address was a violation of constitutional norms.
“The governor talking to the press immediately after his address when it has not been passed by the assembly is an affront to constitutional norms. He seems to have joined the line of BJP governors who don’t conform to the Constitution,” he added. —PTI