Foreign tours of three batches of legislators cancelled, but batch touring S America expresses ‘inability’ to return.
Speaker KG Bopaiah on Wednesday applied the brakes on foreign tour plans of three more batches of legislators, who were preparing to tour Europe and USA. However, a group of 13 legislators currently touring Latin American countries are set to defy chief minister Jagadish Shettar’s instructions to cut short their tour and return home.
The MLAs touring Brazil, Argentina and Chile have reportedly expressed their inability to alter their schedule at this stage. They left on August 30, as part of the legislature committee on public enterprises, and are to return on September 17.
“It will be difficult to change our tour plan in the middle of it as all arrangements for travel, boarding and lodging have been completed,” the MLAs on tour, cutting across party lines, are said to have conveyed to the state government.
However, irresponsible remarks by Congress MLA BC Patil while countering those opposed to the foreign tour had precipitated matters. He had remarked, “The world will not end if we go on foreign tour. Have the people stopped eating and sleeping due to drought?”
It had in a way provoked the chief minister and assembly speaker to cancel the forthcoming tours of three more teams, at least for the next two months.
Over 40 members of Petitions Committee, House Committee and Document Papers Committee were scheduled to go on a ‘study tour’ of Russia, Norway, Denmark, Norway, Egypt, Israel, USA, Canada and Dubai from September 27.
Patil’s statement had caused a public outcry demanding immediate cancellation of their tour. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa had also expressed his ire at the irresponsible attitude of the legislators, while the state had declared a slew of austerity measures. He had said that their presence was required to redress the grievances of people affected by drought.
According to secretariat sources, Bopaiah has ordered a halt on foreign tours for the next two months on Shettar’s request. A team of officials too were to travel with the legislators to render secretarial assistance to them during the study tour. The state government spends over `6.5 lakh on each legislator while on foreign tour.
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