For people’s representatives in the national Capital, the unauthorised colonies land scam to the tune of thousands of crores and the ever spiralling prices of essential commodities are not   matters serious enough for discussion during the winter session beginning from January 9. The Business Advisory Committee of Delhi Assembly has decided to take up the issue of trifurcation of MCD for better administrative arrangement and public conveniences and deteriorating law and order situation. These two issues will be discussed on the same day, January 12.

“It is strange that rising prices of essential commodities, non-existent unauthorised colonies land scam involving thousands of crores are not taken up for discussion. The opposition BJP has joined hands with the ruling Congress on these issues. This House had already debated these two issues on several occasions. It seems that either elected representatives are clueless or they have joined hands in the Assembly,” said a BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.

BAC has accepted Congress MLAs Narender Nath, Devender Yadav and Prahlad Singh Sawhney’s notices for discussion on trifurcation of MCD for better administrative arrangement ahead of the MCD polls and BJP leaders Harshvardhan, HS Balli and Subhash Sachdeva’s notice for deteriorating law and order situation in the city. Leader of Opposition Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra had earlier said that the issue of non-existent unaut-horised colonies’ land scam would be discussed in the House to expose the Sheila Dikshit Government.

When asked, Delhi Assembly Speaker Dr Yoganand Shastri said that it is BAC’s prerogative to decide on the issue. According to Shastri, 24 notices were received by the Assembly and only two are finalised for discussion. “Members should decide which issue is relevant or not,” he said.

Former Delhi BJP president Dr Harshvardhan said that he has given notices on several issues, including non-existent unauthorised colonies, land scam and bail out package to discoms, but Congress is in the majority in BAC and they rejected all relevant notices.  Congress chief whip Kanwar Karan Singh blamed the BJP that they do not want any discussions of any issues in the House. “If they were serious about non-existent colonies scam, they should be listed for discussion, but they did not,” said Singh.

Dwivedi files nomination papers

New Delhi: Congress candidate Janardhan Dwivedi on Friday filed his nomination papers for three Rajya Sabha seats for Delhi. Two other candidates, Parvaiz Hashmi and Dr Karan Singh, is likely to file their papers by Saturday and Monday respectively. The tenure of three Rajya Sabha seats will expire on January 27. The Congress has renominated its candidates while BJP is confused whether to contest or not.

Goel seeks action on illegal colonies scam

New Delhi: Former Union Cabinet Minister Vijay Goel on Friday met Lokayukta justice Manmohan Sarin, along with a delegation consisting of Delhi BJP MLAs and others, and demanded that the two people who signed the provisional certificates provided to the unauthorised colonies should be booked as they issued these certificates flouting all laws. Goel insisted that by issuing these certificates, the citizens residing in these colonies were totally cheated upon as they were given false promises which could never be fulfilled. Goel through a Press statement on Friday said that the total exercise of distributing these certificates was a farce and the distribution act was done by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to create a vote bank.