House panel to nail Chatala's lie: Surjewala

Chandigarh, Mar 13 (UNI) The Haryana assembly has constituted a committee to find out whether former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala (INLD) made a false statement and misled the House on a loan waiver scheme implemented by his late father Devi Lal when he was state Chief Minister.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Surjewala told the assembly today that the committee would find out whether Mr Chautala had spoken a lie when he said yesterday that Mr Devi Lal had waived loans of farmers worth thousands of crores when he was the chief minister of the state in 1987-88.

He said as per the records available in the state, the then Devi Lal government had disbursed a total of Rs 33.64 crore only during that time.

Mr Chautala had made the alleged statement during his speech on the Governor's address to counter the Congress members' contention that the loan waiver for farmers announced by the UPA government in the Union budget recently was an unprecedented step.

Mr Surjewala said the House committee would be headed by Education Minister Mange Ram Gupta and its members would be Mr Phool Chand Mullana, Karan Singh Dalal (both Congress), Ishwar Singh Plaka (INLD), Arjun Singh (BSP) and Tejinder Pal Mann (Independent).

The committee, he said, would give its report by the end of the ongoing budget session of the assembly which would conclude on March 31.

The panel, he alleged, would nail Mr Chautala's lie.

UNI MA RL HT1902