Rawat all set to reclaim CM’s crown in U’khand

After winning the floor test, ousted chief minister Harish Rawat drove straight to the Congress office and thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. He also thanked the party MLAs for firmly standing by him through the twists and turns. Congress won the trial of strength in the Uttarakhand Assembly on Tuesday as the BJP led central government had imposed President rule in the state after ousting the Harish Rawat government on March 28.

Congress MLA Sarita Arya claimed that Rawat had ‘won’ the trust vote with the support of 33 lawmakers, two more than he needed for majority. With nine Congress rebels barred from voting, the effective strength of the 70-member assembly stood at 61. One MLA each of rival sides -Bhimlal Arya (BJP) and Rekha Arya (Cong) are believed to have indulged in cross- voting. The 33 MLAs for Congress included six of the PDF comprising BSP’s two, UKD’s one and three Independents.

Following the SC order, the assembly met for a short duration on Tuesday with Rawat moving a trust motion in the favour of his government. The result of the floor test has been put into a sealed envelope and will be tabled before the apex court on Wednesday. However, coming out of the assembly Congress MLAs claimed victory and BJP MLAs appeared downcast.

Earlier, stepping out of the Assembly after the vote, the sacked chief minister remarked “the cloud of uncertainty hovering over Uttarakhand will disappear on Wednesday.” He said it was the prerogative of the Supreme Court to announce the result of the trial of strength. In New Delhi, soon after the news from Uttarakhand, Congress resisted the passage of the Uttarakhand appropriation bill in the Rajya Sabha, as the state had been put under President’s rule.

 As the Upper House met after the lunch break, Congress members were on their feet shouting slogans against the central government. Amidst the din, Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien tried to initiate discussion on Union Finance Bill but Congress leader Anand Sharma raised questions over the move to bring the Uttarakhand budget bill in the supplementary list. Contending that the state assembly had already passed its Budget and terming it as “Constitutional impropriety,” he said passing the Uttarakhand budget was not the responsibility of Rajya Sabha.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley responded by saying that the passing of the state budget on March 18 was “highly contentious” as the arithmetic was loaded against it. He emphasized that the order of appropriation had to be sanctioned by Parliament, as all expenditure from April 1 needs validation. The Finance Minister said if the state assembly revives, it could pass its Budget but insisted that the bill had to be passed to provide sanction to all expenditure made since April 1, when President’s Rule was in force. This, he said, had nothing to do with what happened in the floor test in the state assembly on Tuesday. However, Sharma and other Congress members refused to buy the argument. Jaitley also mentioned that the state budget had not yet received the required assent of the Governor.

Congress member Pramod Tiwari differed with the Finance Minister’s assumption that the Budget was not passed by the state assembly. CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury said the “political point” seemed that the government was keen to pass the state’s Budget when the matter was to come before the Supreme Court.