Allow us to donate part of MPLAD fund for J&K: Sitaram Yechury to Hamid Ansari

NEW DELHI: CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury today urged Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari to permit MPs to donate part of their MPLAD funds for relief and rehabilitation work in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir.

In a letter to Ansari, he said "it has been the usual practice that such a direction is given whenever major national disasters destroy lives and property in various parts of the country.

Following this practice, I would request you to please instruct the Rajya Sabha Secretariat to permit us to donate part of our MPLAD fund to assist the relief operations."

He said the "MPs who are very concerned and agonised with the plight of people in J and K in the aftermath of the unprecedented floods that have ravaged the state feel that they may be permitted to send a part of their MPLAD fund."

The Rajya Sabha Secretariat "may decide the upper ceiling of such donations that may be permitted," Yechury said.