BJP leaders rallied to the Secretariat in protest against the failure of the State Government to regularise slum settlements. The BJP leaders accused the Congress-led State Government of politicising the issue without taking any concrete action to regularise the slums. The BJP members staged a demonstration outside the Secretariat after being halted by the police. Addressing the gathering, BJP State chief Tirath Singh Rawat said that a notification for regularisation of slums was issued during the tenure of the BJP led State government. However, in stead of facilitating this, the present State Government is politicising the issue. He further said that this issue will also be raised prominently in the budget session of the Assembly slated to begin on Wednesday.
leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Ajay Bhatt accused the Congress-led State government of retributional politics. He said that since being voted to power in Uttarakhand, the Congress had played politics on slums without taking any action for rehabilitating slum dwellers. The Congress is trying to use the slums for political gains in view of the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttarakhand, he said. Speaking on the occasion, Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli said that politics being played on the issue of slum regularisation should be stopped as the decision to regularise had been taken in December 2011. He also said that though there was much talk of regularisation of slums, the State Government had not taken any concrete action in three years to achieve this. It is pertinent to mention here that on Monday, BJP MlA from Mussoorie, Ganesh Joshi had led a protest rally to the Secretariat accusing the State Government of neglecting execution of developmental works in his constituency.
Earlier, in the recent past, Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana had led a rally to the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun seeking ownership rights for slum dwellers. Observers point out that both the Congress and BJP are focusing on the issue of slum dwellers’ rehabilitation in order to gain political benefit.