DHARAMSHALA: Congress legislators on Tuesday staged a walkout from the house during the winter session, blaming the BJP government for putting “Himachal on sale” and “handing over prime properties of the state to the private companies at throwaway prices”.
Leader of the opposition, Mukesh Agnihotri, levelled serious allegations of fund misappropriation by the BJP government. He alleged that first the government took a loan of Rs 200 crores from Asian Development Bank to construct prime properties in Mandi district and then, immediately after construction, gave these properties on lease to private players for 10 to 15 years.
“The prices quoted for these properties were ranging from 17 lakh to 24 lakh while these properties were constructed after investing more than 200 hundred of crore rupees” he said.
Congress legislator and a former banker, Bhawani Pathania, said that the BJP government has even ignored the thumb rule of lease money while allotting these properties to private companies.
“It will take about 125 years to recover the loan money on which prices have been quoted by the government to the private players” he said.
This issue was raised by the Congress immediately after the question hour. Leader of Opposition, Mukesh Agnihotri, raised the papers alleging a mega scam in allotment of the properties.
Heated arguments took place between treasury and opposition benches on this issue. Congress legislators entered the well of the house and continued to shout slogans.
Congress legislators said that the lease money should be around 3% of the total value of the property, but the lease price is near 0.75%. CPIM MLA, Rakesh Singh also joined the protest with the Congress legislators on this issue.