Sajad Lone Clashes with NC MLAs in J&K Assembly Over Medical College Issue

JAMMU:
Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference (PC) on Tuesday clashed with ruling National Conference (NC) MLAs in J&K Assembly over the establishment of a medical college in Handwara town.

The PC MLA, during the Question Hour, stood up after NC MLAs Mir Saifullah, Javed Mirchal and Qaiser Jamshed Lone demanded that the medical college in Handwara town be shifted between Handwara and Kupwara towns.

Sajad opposed the move asserting that his basic concern was that the allotted funds should not lapse. This resulted in sparring between Sajad and NC MLAs.

Sakina Itoo, Minister for Health and Medical Education, intervened saying that she had taken up the issue with the central government seeking extension in the fund utilisation period in this case.

Sajad then wanted to know whether the J&K Government had received some response from the Centre to their request.

While Sajad said he had been abused by political rivals for getting the medical college sanctioned, the NC MLAs accused him of doing so by snatching the medical college from Kupwara town.

Lone launched a counter offensive by accusing the NC of depriving Kupwara of the proposed engineering college by getting it shifted to Safapora in Sonawari constituency of Bandipora district.

While the heated exchanges were going on, minister, Sakina Itoo stood up saying that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had brought “thousands of such medical colleges”.

She said not going into the question of who brought the medical college, she has decided to hold a probe into how was the medical college in Handwara constructed in a flood prone area.

In another development, all the Opposition members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded that thousands of daily wagers across J&K should be made permanent as most of them were now well past the age of applying for any fresh recruitment schemes.

The NC members tried to counter the BJP move by getting up and tried to silence the Opposition MLAs.

Answering a question, Javed Ahmad Dar, agriculture minister, said that the wildlife protection department and the agriculture department were working in close collaboration to ensure that the crops of the farmers were not damaged by wild animals.

It must be mentioned that wild animals like porcupines, bears, wild boars and Nilgai have been causing huge damage to crops in mountainous and forested areas of J&K.