The Bharatiya Janata Party has said that the proposal for special State status to Uttarakhand in the Chhattisgarh convention of the Congress is political hypocrisy. The BJP State president Mahendra Bhatt said that the Congress leaders of Uttarakhand who had remained silent during withdrawal of the special industrial State status granted by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of the NDA government are now talking of getting special status for Uttarakhand. “These leaders had forgotten to add the State’s name in the purported list of special States in the party convention. They had gone from Uttarakhand after seeing the proposal made for north eastern Himalayan States but are now trying to take credit after learning that the name was added at the last moment. The people know and remember everything. They remember that on the request of the then chief minister ND Tiwari, the then PM Vajpayee, rising above political lines, had granted a special industrial package to Uttarakhand for 10 years from 2003. However, as soon as the Congress came to power in the Centre, it withdrew the special package. It is sad that these leaders who are making claims about the special status proposal in the convention now had remained silent when injustice was done to Uttarakhand,” said Bhatt.

He alleged that the top Congress leaders had forgotten to add Uttarakhand in the proposal for granting special State status. The Uttarakhand Congress leaders realised after seeing the list and later the name of Uttarakhand was added as a formality to the list along with north eastern Himalayan States, he averred.