That the present Uttarakhand Government is reduced to a one-man show has been proved more than once during the nearly six month stint of Harish Rawat as the Chief Minister of the State.
This charge dates back to the time when he was supposed to have deliberately kept his ministers 'jobless' by not allocating portfolios for a period longer than expected and the people, including the Opposition party members, had questioned his intention in keeping maters thus to hang fire.
That he has not changed a bit has been proved again when the Chief Minister Rawat asserted himself by overruling his two ministers' transfer- related decisions in the past two days. He cancelled the transfer orders of the teachers in basic education sector, issued on the direction of the State education Minister on Wednesday and, similarly, ordered
implementation of the doctors’ transfer policy pending long before the State health Minister on Thursday.
Such decisions are, however, in sync with his recent declaration that his government was set to take some tougher decisions in the larger interest of the people of the state, post-rural and by-elections. Both the decisions taken by the Chief Minister can be touted as steps taken in the larger public interests. More so, caring a fig for what kind of impact his having undermined some ministers’ authorities will have on his Government in the long run, Chief Minister Rawat has only sought to send a strong signal to his Cabinet colleagues and the Government officials that they must perform.
However, only time will tell how things would pan out politically or to what extent Chief Minister Rawat succeeds in stemming the tide of 'callousness' that keeps crippling the government vis-à-vis development over the past many years. However, unlike his
predecessor Vijay Bahuguna, Rawat seems to be enjoying a free hand in running his Government.
That he is over-brimming with confidence became clear when he banned foreign trips of the Ministers and the Government officials ahead of one of his senior Ministers' reported foreign visit. In his less than two years’ rule as the Chief Minister, Vijay Bahuguna could not have dared to assert himself this way. Many factors might account for him remaining crippled.