Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister Tarun Bhanot has said that the state has all the options available including the legal one to get the state quota funds blocked by the Centre, cleared.
On being asked by News18 MP whether the Kamal Nath-led Madhya Pradesh government was considering over the legal option to get its funds cleared from the Centre, Bhanot said, “All options were open before the state government.”
“We are reviewing all the options available in a democratic set up to raise the public voice and fight for their rights,” said Bhanot, adding that the “legal option” is also open for them. “We will lock the best option available after discussions,” he added.
Earlier, during a News18 event in Jabalpur, Bhanot had accused the Centre of “betraying” the common man in the Union Budget and affirmed that the Madhya Pradesh government would keep on the fight for the public, even in adverse conditions.
Commenting on the feasibility of the legal option over blocked funds, Vivek Tankha, Rajya Sabha MP and a senior advocate in the Supreme Court said, “There are two ways. Under Article 226, the state could approach the High Court or under Article 131, the dispute could be raised with the Supreme Court.”
“Primarily, the second route is more optimum as this is a Centre-state dispute,” said Tankha.
“This could be the first instance when any state would approach the Supreme Court seeking court directives to get its share of justified funds cleared,” said Tankha with a grin on the possibility of Madhya Pradesh opting for legal resort.
Including the Chief Minister Kamal Nath, his council of ministers have repeatedly accused the Centre of blocking Madhya Pradesh’s share of funds and recently Kamal Nath had accused the central government of deducting over Rs 14,000 crore from Madhya Pradesh’s share of monetary allocation in the Union Budget.
However, Madhya Pradesh-Centre locking horns over release of funds is not new.
When Madhya Pradesh was ravaged with a massive flood last year, Chief Minister Kamal Nath had even threatened to stage protest in New Delhi with his ministers over alleged delaying of flood relief. However, nothing of this sort actually happened over paucity of funds.
On last Sunday, while replying to the charge of deducting the share of Madhya Pradesh in the Union Budget, former Union Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha had said that Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s statement was completely a political one.
“The statement made by Chief Minister Kamal Nath regarding the reduction of Rs 14,500 crore in the amount received from the Centre by Madhya Pradesh. He is completely political. He has nothing to do with reality. In fact, the state government wasn’t using the money of the central schemes,” Sinha had alleged in Bhopal during a visit.
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