Thaindian News

Raipur, Dec 13 (IANS) Alleging rampant corruption and rise in staged shootouts in the state, the Congress Tuesday announced it would bring in a no-confidence motion against the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh during the winter session of the assembly.

“The Congress has been forced to bring in a no-confidence motion against the state government as there is broad consensus that the Raman Singh regime has crossed the line whether on corruption, shootouts or farmers’ suicides,” Shailesh Nitin Trivedi, chief spokesperson of the Congress in Chhattisgarh, told IANS.

The Congress, he added, would highlight the corruption scandals, rising Maoist militancy, custodial deaths and betrayal of farmers by the BJP regime in the state when the assembly takes up the no-confidence motion during a brief winter session starting Dec 15. The session will conclude Dec 23.

Trivedi said during the no-trust motion debate, his party will also mention the botched eye surgeries operations at a government health camp late October in Durg district which left 45 people blind. The party will also raise the “mass selling of tribals’ land to corporate and private parties”.

The resurgent Congress led by its state chief Nandkumar Patel has turned the heat on the Raman Singh government with a series of demonstrations in the past four months for its alleged failures on all fronts.

A jumbo delegation of Congress members from Chhattisgarh met President Pratibha Patil in New Delhi in September and submitted a charge sheet against the BJP government, claiming that the Raman Singh government was mired in corruption scandals worth Rs.20,000 crore.

In the latest of a series of street protests against the BJP government, thousands of Congress workers courted arrest Dec 9 in all of the state’s 18 districts.

Sources in the BJP say that the party is under pressure from the massive street campaign by the Congress.

“The Congress was ineffective in the state for several years but it has now exerted sudden pressure on the government, mainly in the past four months. we are finalising our strategy to blunt the Congress campaign,” a senior BJP leader, who is minister in the 13-member Raman Singh ministry, told IANS.

He said the BJP has called a meeting of its legislators late Wednesday to devise a strategy to effectively counter the Congress attack in the assembly.

The BJP has 49 members while the Congress has 39 and the Bahujan Samaj Party two in the 90-member state assembly.