The State Government has gone against public sentiment by making Bindukhatta a municipality and the BJP will strongly oppose this. Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar MP and former State Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari said this while speaking at a programme organised by the BJP against making Bindukhatta a municipality. The MP said that the thousands of people live in rural surroundings in Bindukhatta and the Government decision would bring about a drastic change the rural surroundings against popular public sentiment.

He said, “The BJP is with the public. Instead of making Bindukhatta a municipality, the State Government should have worked towards making it a revenue village by sending a proposal to the Central Government to make Bindukhatta a revenue village.” If the State Government sends such a proposal to the Centre, I will personally talk to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attempt to facilitate revenue village status for Bindukhatta, he added.

Talking to the media, the MP took a dig at the State Government for seeking Rs10,000 crore from the Centre under Namami Gange programme stating “If the Centre provides Rs10,000 crore to Uttarakhand for cleaning the Ganga, the Chief Minister and his ministers might end up bathing in the money instead”.

He said that the previous Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre had provided funds for Ganga cleaning and before that the BJP-led NDA Government had also allocated funds for cleaning the Ganga but there is no clarity regarding the work done with these funds. The Centre will make checks and then allocate budget to Uttarakhand under Namami Gange to prevent misuse of the funds.On being asked whether the BJP would field its candidate in the Bindukhatta municipal polls, Koshyari said that the party would not let such a situation arise. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-leninist) and its allied organisations have been protesting against the State Government’s decision to make Bindukhatta a municipality with the BJP also jumping in the fray later.