Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Wednesday witnessed noisy scenes over the issue of power crisis which even led to the House being adjourned for a while as opposition members alleged that the Samajwadi Party government was not serious about the fixing the problem.
The issue was raised during question hour by Congress member Mukesh Srivastav alias Gyanendra Pratap when he inquired about sanctioned power projects in the state.
In his response, state cabinet minister Shivpal Yadav told the House that there were 31 such projects which, however, were yet to be taken up due to hurdles over land acquisition, NOC from Environment Ministry, coal linkages, etc.
The heated debate between ruling SP and BSP started when former energy minister and BSP leader Ramveer Upadhyay asked the government to list the projects started by SP after March, 2012.
Yadav, in his reply, said nothing had been done in five year regime of BSP while on the other hand SP government was trying to increase capacity of old power units and ensure that there would be no power shortage in summer when the electricity demand is as high as between 10500 MW to 12000 MW.
Not satisfied with the minister`s reply, BSP members walked out of the House alleging that the SP government was not taking the issue seriously.
The matter did not end there as SP-BSP leader locked horns again during another question when leader of opposition Swami Prasad Maurya asked Yadav to inform how much power was purchased between April to June.
But with no specific reply forthcoming, Maurya progressed to the well of the House with other BSP members raising slogans against the SP government.
The argument raged on with SP leader Ambika Chowdhury alleging that BSP members did not really want to hear any replies because their regime had seen large-scale corruption in the power department.
"BSP members are afraid of inquiry into the scams (perpetrated) by them and that is why they are creating noisy scenes in the House," Chowdhury said.
Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey made repeated requests with BSP members to calm down and return to their seats but with the irate MLAs refusing to budge, he adjourned the House for five minutes which was later extended by a further 15 minutes.
PTI
