BJP chief slams govt for deferring decision

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, June 30

Uttarakhand BJP president Teerath Singh Rawat today lambasted the Uttarakhand Government for deferring a decision on providing horizontal reservation to statehood activists in government jobs.

“These are all tactics to buy time. In order to honour the resolution passed in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, the government should have been ready with an Act by now. It would have fulfilled the aspirations of the statehood activists,” said Rawat, while addressing a press conference here today.

He criticised the government for bringing out a lopsided mining policy which was aimed at benefiting the people from other states.

He said the reconstruction efforts of the government in the disaster-affected areas post-2013 were insufficient.

“I have just returned after touring the disaster-affected areas. All the construction activity that the government claims it has carried out could not withstand the pre-monsoon showers,” he said.

He pointed out at the destruction caused by the rains in Chief Minister’s Dharchula constituency, which, too, had bore the brunt of 2013 floods.

“The Sobla Bridge in Darma valley, which was constructed recently, has been damaged. The Nangling and Elagaad bridges, between Tava ghat and Gunji on the Kailash Mansarovar yatra route, constructed after the disaster have also been damaged again. These structures were of such poor quality that they could not withstand the rains,” he added.

The BJP chief also put a question mark on the quality of works carried out in Kedarnath and Badrinath. “The bridge at Sonprayag, built at a cost of Rs 35 lakh is heavily damaged. On the other hand, another bridge now in use and built by the Border Road Organisation (BRO) is in fine fettle,” he said.