Madhu Koda smoothly defeats no confidence motion

Dec 19:  The Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Madhu Koda has smoothly proved his power by defeating his rivals’ challenge of no confidence motion by 41-33 in the 81-member of assembly in the lower house of state assembly on Tuesday.

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It was Koda’s first acid test in his 15-months ruling as being the chief minister of state after getting the power from NDA government. The speaker of the house Aalamgir Aalam announced the power-test result after a marathon six-and-a-half-hour debate and then after division of vote act yesterday.

The National Democratic Alliance, NDA had asked a CBI inquiry or to set up a committee for looking the matter of alleged corruption charges over Koda and UPA. They had also raised the objection over giving advance money worth Rs.3.30 million to the contractor before constructing the road. For these matters, NDA in the lead of Arjun Munda has called the no-confidance against Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda and his supporting Party alliance UPA (United Progressive Allaince). Madhu is an independent legislature who has the support of Congress and alliance parties.

In the response of this test, Koda became offensive and threatened opposition to defame UPA government and him. “Only to defame me and the UPA government, the opposition and its leaders have been levelling charges sans any evidence. I and some of my cabinet members had left the NDA government to form the UPA government after realising that the erstwhile regime had been 'deceiving' people and them as well,” responded Koda over the allegation ‘charges of corruption’ has labelled by the opposition parties.

Dominating over opposition Koda has reckoned several successes achieved by his government after handling the command of the state. “UPA has created 27,000 jobs in the state and emerged third in the implementation of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and first in the 20-point programme implementation in the country,” said CM.

“We have made progress in this area. We have taken steps to revive sick industries. The government has given a revival package of Rs 806 crore to the Heavy Engineering Corporation,” added Madhu.

This no-confidence motion was asked by opposition party led by BJP over the corruption in the construction of a 45 km long road that construction cost surged from Rs.100- million to Rs.1.64 billion in just two years. This is the same road for which Madhu Koda had deposed Arjun Munda government in September 2006. This road comes under the constituency of Koda and being constructed between Hatghmaria and Baraiburu of Chaibasa district.

Responding over the leader of opposition Arjun Munda, Madhu alleged him and his party for hurting the trust of 3 crore people of the state. “It was a baseless allegation over me and UPA. The cost of the particular road was increased at the suggestion of a consultant,” said UPA head in the state. But the opposition party leaders were not agreed over his argument. “In 15-months of UPA ruling no case of rioting was noted in the state,” added Koda.

On the other hand, Congress has set up a deadline of January 15 for the Koda government to review support to the government and the performance of the government in the lower house. “A 19-point of memorandum has been issued by the Congress. It is a constructive way to speed up development work,” Koda said.

In the NDA, the Bharatiya Janata Party has 24 legislators, five are of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and five are suspended BJP legislators.

The UPA comprises nine legislators from congress, seven from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), 17 from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the remainings are from either smaller parties or are independents while in NDA, Bharatiya Janata Party has 24 legislators, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) has five and rest five are suspended BJP legislators who did not turn off their votes.

In Septemer 2006, UPA had deposed the NDA government led by Arjun Munda and handed the crown to independent Madhu Koda government by collating him in UPA.