JAMMU : Congress today staged a walkout from Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council after its resolution demanding grant of land for building permanent infrastructure for annual Amarnath yatra was rejected.
Congress MLA Jugal Kishore stood up from his bench during Zero hour and sought an reply from the Council Chairman Amrit Malhotra why his resolution was rejected.
“I have powers and I have rejected it”, the Chairman replied with angry Congress member rushing to the Well of the House to lodge protests over the rejection.
After few minutes of protests, they staged the walkout.
Later talking to reporters outside the House, Jugal said “I had brought a resolution in the house demanding grant of land for building permanent structures for Amarnath yatra at various places including Baltal etc”.
“I wanted a discussion on it and reply from the government that whether they want to grant land for building infrastructure for Amarnath yatra. It was arbitrarily rejected by the Chairman without giving any reasons”, he said.
Jugal claimed that deaths have taken place due to poor infrastructure at the yatra places so we wanted better infrastructure, as BJP is in the government they should facilitate grant of the land for the yatra.
It may be recalled that on 26 May 2008, the then Jammu and Kashmir government led by Gulam Nabi Azad had transferred 99 acres of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB) in the main Kashmir Valley to set up temporary shelters and facilities for pilgrims.
This caused a controversy, with demonstrations from the Kashmir valley against the land transfer and protests from the Jammu region supporting it. (AGENCIES)
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