Agartala: The opposition Congress has accused the ruling Left Front of providing administrative protection to fake schedule caste (SC) certificate holder MLA Partha Das of RSP and inclusion of MLA Sahid Choudhury, allegedly involved in an international terrorist gang, in the cabinet.
The first day of the ensuing Budget session of the Assembly on Saturday witnessed uproar over the issues and the opposition demanded immediate ceasesion of MLA-ship of Mr Das and removal of Mr Choudhury from the ministry considering security of the state.
Das was elected from a constituency reserved for SC allegedly providing fake certificate.
The issue rocked the administration soon after the election though no conclusion could be drawn in the investigation for last four years. His elder brother Dr Chandan Das had lost his job for the same charges after his certificate was found to fake.
Replying to a query of Leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath, Minister-in-charge of SC Welfare Anil Sarkar said Partha Das had challenged the right of SDM over show-cause notice and filed a writ petition to Guahati High Court, which in turn on April 26, 2011 directed to carry out the inquiry by State Scrutiny Committee.
Mr Nath alleged, ‘There is no authority of SDM to serve show-cause notice on fake SC certificate issue but Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has made SDM serve notice to Mr Das to pave the way for him to move the High Court challenging the authority to kill the time,’ and added that all corrupt people and systems were getting shelter from the chief minister.
Meanwhile, the entire opposition stood up with placards to protest against the inclusion of Sahid Choudhury in the cabinet while Governor was addressing the house.
Sahid Choudhury had resigned from the cabinet in 2008 following allegation of being involved in harbouring international terrorist and frontline HuJI activist Mamun Miah at Agartala.
‘Despite our repeated persuasion and demands to hand over the case of Sahid-Mamun nexus to National Investigation Agency (NIA) considering country’s security, the state government ignored it and included him in the cabinet to influence the minority voters,’ said opposition MLA Birajit Sinha in the house.
Rs 1 lakh compensation to each AMRI victims:The Tripura Government has announced a compensation of Rs one lakh each to all the seven families of AMRI victims of Tripura, who died during a fire in the facility in Kolkata on December 9 last following demands from the opposition.
Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said the decision was taken a month ago though official procedures delayed the actual sanction to beneficiaries.He said the injured persons in the accident had already been given Rs 7,500 each. (UNI)