UKD to raise Gairsain capital issue during Assembly session

Tribune News Service

Haridwar, October 23

The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (Progressive) will raise the issue of declaring Gairsain the permanent capital during the upcoming Assembly session to be held from November 2 to 6.

UKD-P will also stage a sit-in protest to draw the attention of Chief Minister Harish Rawat and all legislators of the state Assembly towards the issue.

During a meeting of party activists here today, senior UKD leader Uday Ram Semwal said despite 15 years of separate state formation of Uttarak-hand from Uttar Pradesh, the respective state governments have failed to solve the permanent capital issue.

Doubting the intentions of both political parties, Semwal said lavish houses, guest houses and Assembly buildings were made in Dehradun in the past 15 years in the name of interim capital, while Gairsain got nothing in this tenure, barring past two years, when former Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna sanctioned the Assembly building, transit hostel building for legislators and related infrastructure at Gairsain.

“The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal led the movement with the vision of capital status for Gairsain. Eminent freedom fighter Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali had written to then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru about Gairsain as an ideal place for summer capital of Independent India,” Semwal said.

Youth wing city president Lalit Mamgain also raised fingers over simultaneous construction of Assembly buildings at Raipur and Dehradun when the city already has an Assembly building at Dharampur.

“This puts a question mark over the intention of the Congress-led government as well as the Opposition BJP as why they are not speaking a word on the need of two separate Assembly buildings in an interim capital,” added Mamgain.

UKD leaders also cornered Chief Minister Harish Rawat over the CD sting involving his personal secretary and distribution of red beacons, security cover to numerous rank holders to Congress party leaders, which are only adding to state exchequer, which could been have utilised for disaster-rehabilitation projects.