A no-confidence motion brought by the opposition Congress against West Bengals Left Front government was defeated in the state Assembly yesterday. The one line motion was moved by the opposition leader, Atish Sinha.
Though attendance by the members belonging to the ruling Left Front remained generally thin during the current session of the state Assembly total number of members present during the day was 237 out of the strength of 294. The no-confidence motion was put to vote after the end of the debate. While 68 members voted for the motion 168 were against it.One member abstained. from voting.
Sinha alleged that there was all round corruption in the state under government patronage. The members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) were mostly connected with corrupt activities. Besides, there had been rise in criminal activities in the state. Under the situation there was no reason for supporing this corrupt government.
In his speech Sinha spoke about the governments failure in respect of land reforms, development of agriculture, industrial growth and employment generation.
He said that during the Left Front regime the lot of the poorer section of the people living in the rural areas had been worse though lots of money were being spent for rural development. The government had also failed to check the rise in prices.
The four-hour debate was held in a tense atmosphere as the Congress members made repeated attempts to disrupt the ministers including Chief Minister Jyoti Basus speeches defending the government.
The Speaker, Hasim Abdul Halim warned the members that he would be forced to adopt stern measures if the Congress members did not observe the decorum of the house.
Chief minister Jyoti Basu, participating in the debate said that the Congress was a party of liers and it would be again defeated if elections were held in the country.
About the charges of financial irregularities against his government Basu said that they would abide by the judgement of the court in the case regading public ledger (PL) account.
Basu said that the Congress members spoke about the deteriorating law and order situation in the state but during their party rule 1,100 CPI(M) workers had been murdered.
Finance minister, Asim Dasgupta said that only the West Bengal government had entrusted the Accountant General to audit the accounts of panchayat samities and zilla parishads.The panchayat department had completed auditing of the gram panchayat accounts but in the case of panchayat samaities and zilla parishads the auditing was being delayed.
He said that the state government wanted through scrutiny of the government accounts by the Accountant General and the government had nothing to fear from such open assessment.
Refuting the charge by the Congress members of failures of the government in respect of land reforms and other areas Dasgupta said that at present 69 per cent of small and marginal farmers had cultivable land of their own.The number of people living below the poverty line had gone down to 15 per cent of the total population in some districts.
Dasgupta said that increase in production and productivity in the villages had brought funds in the hands of the common people and their purchasing powers had been increased.This was irritating the opposition members.
He said that the state government was following the path of democratic decentralisation of planning.This model was now going to be adopted by the countries both developing and developed.
The house witnessed uproarious scenes when Surya Kanta Misra, minister for panchayat and land reforms rose to speak against the motion.He questioned the logic behind the Congress demand for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged misuse of funds by the government when the public accounts committee of the assembly was yet to consider the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
Misra said that it was not a fact that the funds were being returned to the Union government for non-execution of centrally sponsored schemes.In fact such funds along with the state governments contribution had been kept in the local fund (LF) accounts which were duly asudited.
Buddhadev Bhattacharya, minister for home (police) said the Left Front was in power in the state for the last twenty years.The government would
welcome any move to start investigation against any of the ministers by the opposition members.He challenged the opposition members to declare their assests in the house within three months.
There was an uproar in the house when the Congress members objected to the remark by the minister.However, during reply to the debate on the motion Atish Sinha, opposition leader asked Bhattacharya whether he, his cabinet colleagues and ruling party members were ready to make such declaration before the house if the Congress did so.
