Srinagar: Ruling PDP MLAs Thursday left the government in a tight-spot as they supported National Conference (NC) in slamming Finance Minister, Haseeb Drabu, for his failure to fulfil the earlier budget promises, reports said.
During the discussion on the Budget in Legislative Assembly, former ministers and PDP MLAs, Altaf Bukhari and Javed Mustafa Mir, supported NC members, who took a swipe at Drabu for making hollow promises in the budget for the next fiscal year.
NCs Jammu provincial president and party MLA from Nagrota, Devinder Singh Rana, came down heavily on the government for not keeping the promises made in previous two budgets about the regularization of daily wagers.
He said instead of making tall claims of reforms in his budget, Drabu should have focused on clearing the liabilities of the contractors.
Altaf Bukhari, who is Amirakadal MLA, supported Rana by asking the government to clear the liabilities of the contractors.
It drew applause from the NC and Congress MLAs in the house.
Bukhari said it was a matter of disappointment that the pending liabilities of the contractors have not been cleared by the government.
He called upon the government to ensure that the financial autonomy of the state was protected so that conditions in Kashmir dont deteriorate.
Former minister and Congress MLA, G M Saroori, hailed Altaf Bukharis work in his tenure as the Roads and Buildings Minister.
Whatever Altaf saheb did was a commendable job, he said.
After the intervention of Altaf, Rana said the assurance about release of pending bills of contractors should have come from the government and not the MLA.
In his intervention during the budget speech, PDP MLA and former minister, Javid Mustafa Mir, said Rana made a good speech in the Assembly on the budget and shouldnt have been intervened by some of the members.
The NC leader was interrupted by BJPs state president and MLA, Sat Paul Sharma, who earlier came to the rescue of Drabu by terming the accusations of opposition members as unfounded.
Rana was leveling charges without any basis and his speech was not based on facts, Sharma said.
Participating in the discussion on the budget, former Minister and BJP MLA, Sukhnadan Kumar, hit out at Finance Minister for leaving out the farmers in his budget.
He said Drabu has failed to address the concerns of the farmers and demanded that government should lift their produce through Market Intervention Scheme (MIS).
In his speech, former Minister and Congress MLA, Aijaz Khan, came down heavily on Finance Minister and termed the budget as anti-people.
He said the FM has not announced any scheme for the welfare of farmers.
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