Opposition parties in the state legislature have failed to mount pressure on the PDP-BJP coalition government on the issue of land grabbing by Minister for Animal Husbandry Abdul Gani Kohli.
The Vigilance Organisation is probing a case against Kohli and has found that the minister has grabbed around 10 kanals of forest land.
The Animal Husbandry Minister has raised a huge structure on the forest land at Nowabad in the Sunjwan area of Jammu city. A BEd college, ETT college, paramedical school, public school and a branch of J&K Bank along with an ATM are functioning in it.
Despite a prima facie case against the minister and the Jammu and Kashmir High Court directions to the Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, to cooperate with the Vigilance Organisation and demarcate the land, the official hasn’t cooperated fully.
Opposition political parties have not done much to force the minister to quit and allow the inquiry to continue freely.
“We raised the issue in the Assembly once and did not allow the House to function during Question Hour. We have asked the Deputy Commissioner, Jammu, to submit a report to the Assembly and we will again raise the issue,” said Nawang Rigzin Jora, Congress Legislature Party leader.
Sources in the Congress said there were a few elements in the CLP who did not want to pursue the case and only protested for the sake of protest.
“Not every legislator is ready to get aggressive against the minister for reasons best known to them,” said a source.
Even the main opposition party National Conference (NC) has not taken the matter seriously and has failed to raise the issue in the Assembly.
“We did protest and in future also protests will be held,” said Mubarak Gul, an NC leader.
Sources said neither of the two opposition parties had demanded resignation from the minister on the issue and had maintained a criminal silence. They said Kohli enjoyed good relations with a few members of both opposition parties and that might have enabled him to save his chair so far.
Opposition fails to push for resignation of ‘tainted’ minister
