Congress MLA in Gujarat under house arrest for CM's visit

Surendranagar, June 16 (IANS) Surendranagar police on Thursday put Congress MLA from Dasada, who had threatened to protest during Chief Minister's visit to Patdi Taluka if demands of the local areas were not met, under house arrest.

MLA Naushad Solanki was not allowed to attend Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel's project inauguration event. But his supporters were successful to protest with black balloons and flags at the helipad site.

Naushad Solanki, in a letter addressed to the Chief Minister, had demanded to address 20 pending problems of his constituency, like announcing a Rs 250 crore package of Paddhar community of Scheduled Tribes in the Nalsarovar area and for OBC, Scheduled Caste and Maldhari communities.

He had even demanded to take back thousands of hectares of land allotted to Hindu Salt Company, which is unutilized. At present there is no mechanism to fix the rate of salt manufactured by salt pan workers (Agariyas). His demand is that the state should announce Minimum Support Price for salt produced by pan workers.

He has also demanded to resume trains up to Kharaghoda (little Rann of Kutch) area, where the salt pan workers have to use their own vehicles or have to hire vehicles to reach the salt pans. Trains were running during the Congress regime, Solanki said.

For a long time local people have been demanding to carve a separate Nalsarovar taluka from Dasada, which has not been met.

The state government is kind enough in setting up four Community Health Centres in Dasada taluka, the only problem with these CHC is that none of them have specialist doctors. So locals have to consult private doctors in Surendranagar city, which proves too costly for them, Solanki further said.