Lucknow: Seventeen Uttar Pradesh ministers and MLAs have gone on an 18-day ‘study tour’ of the UK, Turkey, the Netherlands, Greece and the UAE. The MLAs will visit Istanbul, London, The Hague, Amsterdam, Greece and the UAE at the expense of the state exchequer.
On the trip are UP ministers Azam Khan, Raja Bhaiya, Ambika Chowdhary, Om Prakash Singh, Abhishek Mishra, Bhagwat Saran Gangwar, Shivkumar Beriya, Manoj Paras and Yogesh Singh, Samajwadi Party MLAs Ghazala Lari, Irfan Solanki and Munendra Shukla, BJP MLA Seema Dwivedi, RLD MLA Poran Prakash and UP Vidhan Sabha Principal Secretary Pradeep Dubey.
The trip is an initiative of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey and CLP leader Pradeep Mathur have opted out of the tour. On individual level, each MLA has pooled in Rs.2 lakh for receiving foreign exchange for personal expenses. A fund of over Rs.1 crore has been sanctioned for the trip, said UP government sources.
The trip has been described as a study tour of political institutions of the five countries. However, there are also arrangements for sightseeing in Europe. The Congress and the BJP have objected to the tour as homeless riot victims were battling the bitter cold in Muzaffarnagar. It is not right to spend public money on excursions. They should not have gone, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, chief of the Congress’ UP unit, said.
For elected representatives to go on a foreign tour leaving behind the people to grapple with their problems is not a good sign for democracy, said BJP leader Laxmikant Bajpayee. The Uttar Pradesh Home Secretary A.K. Gupta for his remark on children deaths in Muzaffarnagar relief camp. Gupta had said nobody dies of cold and if they did, how could people be living in Siberia.
Bureau Report
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