Surat floods put Modi govt in tight spot in Assembly

Gandhinagar, Sept 18 (UNI) The Gujarat Assembly today witnessed uproarious scenes over Surat flood issue which led to an adjournment of the House for half an hour in the afternoon.

The two-day Monsoon Session which began today saw the Modi government facing flak from the irrepressible Congress Party's Leader of the Opposition Arjun Modhwadia over the devastating floods which he termed was caused by negligence of the ruling BJP government. The opposition Congress alleged that water from 58 dams were released without forethought creating the devastating floods.

Speaker Mangaldas M Patel adjourned the proceedings after Modhvadia argued strongly over the issue and accidentally dislodged the mike while making some gestures.

The proceedings turned acrimonious during the speech of state Revenue Minister Kaushik Patel while giving details of the government work after the floods.

Even as the Minister was speaking, Modhvadia stood up and objected to this, saying that earlier during the Question Hour, when details of the Ukai dam flooding Surat city were asked, the government had denied saying that an inquiry was underway.

He said the Minister was repeating what was already common knowledge and that matters of importance to the people should be discussed.

However, the Speaker allowed the Minister to continue, prompting the Opposition to shout anti-government slogans. At this point, Modhvadia's mike got dislodged as his hand hit it, while he was emotively talking to the Speaker.

Earlier the Congress MLA Paresh Dhanani representing Amreli was persistent in his criticism. He charged that the floods had resulted in deaths of 25,000 people in the state. This statement of Mr Dhanani resulted in furore from the Treasury benches. Mr Dhanani charged that lakhs of cusecs of water were let out from Ukai, Dharoi and Kadana dams without any forethought or planning resulting in largescale deaths and destruction to business, industry and agriculture.

Replying to Dhanani, the Water Supply minister Narottambhai Patel disputed the exaggerated deaths being bandied about by the Congress. He said that 64 rivers in the state had been overflowing.

And out of these, five big rivers- Sabaramati, Saraswati, Banas, Narmada and Tapi were interstate rivers and huge water inflows were witnessed from other states for which, the state government was not responsible.

The Speaker Mangalbhai also came down heavily on Mr Dhanani and the Congress saying that the party should refrain from giving wrong figures.

Later Chief Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to Jaswantbhai Nanubhai Mehta, K Ka Sastry, the VHP leader. Other Congress members too condoled the death of Sastry saying that Sastryji gave glory to Gujarat with his pen. A Congress member described Sastry as a ''moving encyclopaedia.'' UNI VNB KU RA VC2220