Jammu, July 19: A day after indefinite postponement of crucial meeting to constitute the State Accountability Commission (SAC), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday said the ruling coalition partners—National Conference and Congress—were not sincere about the reconstitution of defunct SAC.
 It also blamed the coalition regime of ‘tacitly’ trying to keep institutions like SAC and State Vigilance Organization (SVO) “permanently defunct”.
 “On the one hand both the National Conference as well as Congress are on record having lent support to Lok Pal Bill at the Centre and on the other, leave aside appointing Lok Ayukta in the state, the coalition regime in the state is guilty of repeatedly putting off the reconstituting of defunct SAC on one pretext or the other,” chief spokesperson state BJP Jitendra Singh said in a statement here.
 Reacting to yet another indefinite postponement of the high-level meeting which was scheduled to be held on Monday to decide upon the names of Chairman and other members of the SAC, Singh remarked, “Coalition is answerable for its inability to make SAC functional ever since it took over nearly three years ago.”
 “The Congress party in particular owes an explanation in this regard in the wake of reports in a section of press that yesterday’s meeting to select Chairman and members of SAC had to be called off owing to Congress party’s displeasure over not being taken into confidence regarding the panel of names short-listed even though the ostensible reason cited was the chief minister’s indisposed health.”
 The BJP leader said this was also an indication of “lack of coordination” between the coalition partners.
 “It is ironic, that even though the bill to establish SAC was enacted way back in 2003 but the SAC has been functional only for a brief period during the last eight years,” Singh said, adding “It not only smacks of non-seriousness on the part of the government, but also its lack of sincerity on the issue.”
 He asked, “Does this mean that the present coalition government is afraid of various scams and corruption cases involving its ministers and blue-eyed bureaucrats?
 Singh said the BJP has launched a country-wide campaign against corruption in high places and would expose such cases in Jammu and Kashmir as well.
 He said the state unit of BJP has in collaboration with its central cell headed by Kirit Somaiya prepared a detailed dossier of some “notorious  scams” in J&K including land-encroachments and cash for jobs, and the same is being followed up for redressal through legal and other means.
 He said the party had also called for accountability of huge Central grants being received by the coalition government on the pretext of state being militancy affected.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 19 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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