Gandhinagar: The opposition Congress has given a breach-of-privilege notice in the Gujarat Assembly against Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, accusing her of “misleading” the House about the Justice M B Shah Commission report when she was Revenue Minister in 2013.
The notice, seeking the Speaker’s permission to move breach-of-privilege motion against Patel, was given by the senior Congress MLA Raghavji Patel a week ago.
During Monday’s proceedings in the Assembly, Raghavji sought to know the status of his notice from Speaker Ganpat Vasava.
“As the current session is about to end (on March 31), I want to know what happened to my notice,” he said.
Mr Vasava said he had received the notice and the matter was still under consideration. Mr Vasava also asked Raghavji not to discuss the issue in the House as the final decision had not been taken yet.
Justice M B Shah Commission was set up in 2011 to probe the allegations of corruption levelled by Congress against the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government of Gujarat. It submitted the final report at the end of 2013 to the state government.
“During an Assembly session in 2013, I asked the Government why it was not tabling the report….On this, (Anandiben) Patel (then Revenue Minister in Modi’s cabinet) stated the report had been sent to Governor. She asked me to collect it from the Governor instead of bothering her,” Raghavjee told PTI.
“When we inquired at Governor’s office, we were informed that the state Government never submitted this report. So I have given a notice of breach-of-privilege against her, as she had misled the House then,” said the MLA.
Congress MLAs yesterday also staged a brief walk-out over delay in tabling of the Commission’s report in the Assembly.
PTI