Even as Bundelkhand fights a drought, Uttar Pradesh MLAs are on a foreign junket enjoying the snow in Japan. Dismissing criticism, UP Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey defended the visit claiming that the trip was a 'study tour' to help them handle the drought situation in a better manner.
The delegation of 17 MLAs from Uttar Pradesh, led by the Assembly Speaker, is on a 3-nation tour of Japan, Australia and New Zealand for 18 days. The junket comes at a time when farmers in Bundelkhand are battling severe famine and children there are staying alive by eating chapatis with salt.
Out of 17 MLAs, 15 are from the Samajwadi Party (SP), one is from the Congress, and one from the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). Pradeep Mathur is the MLA from the Congress and Dalveer Singh from the RLD. The MLAs from SP, according to reports are: Azam Khan, Sangram Singh Yadav, Ambika Chaudhary, Md. Rehan Naeem, Omprakash Singh, Anup Gupta, Abhishek Mishra, Irfan Solanki, Bhagwat Saran Gangwar, Sukesh Bahadur, Asha Kishor, Aruna Kumari Kori, Pradeep Kumar Dubey, Yogesh Pratap Singh and Chaudhary Fasiha Bashir.
Interestingly, Japan which was included as a 'study tour' destination is not a part of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Bundelkhand – which is divided between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – is battling famine due to consecutive droughts and hailstorms which destroyed crops. CNN-IBN has reported on how food is scarce there and lakhs of people are fleeing the region to survive.
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