Yog Raj Sharma
The North News
Shimla, March 19
The opposition BJP staged a protest outside the Himachal Pradesh Assembly for a second consecutive day on Thursday, accusing the state government of shielding alleged forest and mining mafias and raising concerns over large-scale illegal tree felling in Sirmaur and Solan districts.
Before the House proceedings began on the second day of the Budget Session, BJP legislators demonstrated with placards and targeted the Congress government over what they described as serious irregularities in forest protection and law enforcement.
Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur alleged that in Sirmaur district’s Shillai area, permission had been granted to cut only 25 trees, but more than 300 trees were allegedly felled and flattened at the site. He questioned how such large-scale felling on private land could have been allowed and claimed that the role of a Congress leader had surfaced in the matter, raising questions over the government’s functioning.
Thakur also alleged that in the Dharampur Assembly constituency, hundreds of trees were illegally cut by a Congress leader. He claimed that when a committee of BJP legislators visited the area, some felled trees had been thrown from a slope into the Sutlej river, while others were allegedly buried underground using earthmoving machinery.
The opposition described the alleged incidents as a serious threat to both the environment and law and order, and demanded accountability from the government over the matter.
