India News | U'khand: Cong Demands Dhami's Resignation for 'protecting' Mining Mafia

Dehradun, Dec 11 (PTI) Opposition Congress dug in its heels in the state assembly on the issue of illegal mining on the third day of the winter session on Saturday with Leader of Opposition Pritam Singh demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami for allegedly shielding the mining mafia.

Nandan Singh Bisht, a public relations officer (PRO) at the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), had written a letter to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Bageshwar on December 8 asking him to cancel the challans issued against three vehicles used allegedly for illegal mining specifying their numbers.

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Bisht had said that the challans be cancelled citing an oral order of the chief minister to this effect.

After the opposition raised the issue in the House, Additional Chief Secretary Anand Vardhan issued an order on Saturday asking officers on special duty (OSDs), PROs, coordinators and the chief coordinator at the CMO not to use the official letterhead for issuing administrative orders with their signatures.

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Singh said the letter proved the CMO's protection to the mining mafia and demanded the chief minister's resignation on moral grounds.

Congress poll campaign head Harish Rawat and state Congress president Ganesh Godiyal also raised the issue outside the assembly and staged a dharna at one of its gates along with their supporters holding anti-government placards which read "mining loving CM, wake up".

The opposition also raised the issue of unemployment in the state assembly accusing the BJP government of issuing "conflicting and misleading" data on the number of people given employment in the state.

"The parliamentary affairs minister informed the House in 2020 that 10 lakh people had been given employment and contradicted himself in 2021 saying only seven lakh people had been given employment," Singh said.

"All we want to know is which of the two figures is correct. The state government is misleading the House by giving conflicting data on employment," he added. PTI ALM

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)