The State BJP has demanded President's rule in Uttarakhand, accusing the present Vijay Bahuguna-led State Government of being incapable of mitigating hardships of the victims of the natural calamities in the State.
The State Government was totally unaware of what the hill State had gone through for the first four days from June 17 to June 20. No Government representatives or its officials were visible in the disaster-struck Kedarnath and its adjacent areas during that period, alleged Balraj Paasi, spokesperson of State BJP.
Thus it was not the natural catastrophe but delay in reaching out to the victims in the trouble torn Himalayan terrain caused more losses of lives. The Prime Minister-led disaster management committee in which Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna is mere a member, only gives a kind of impression that State Government is not capable of handling Uttarakhand rebuilding process, Passi further said.
The BJP never tried to politicise this matter. But the matter of fact is that people died of hunger, injuries due to delay in carrying out relief operations in first four days. The Chief Minister left for Delhi on June 17 after a holding meeting and called an all party meet on June 18 after returning from Delhi. But the matter of concern is that the State Government was not aware of the seriousness of the incident.
However, after the all party meet convened by the Chief minister, a team of BJP led by Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and myself was in Kedarnath on June 19. Seeing the mass scale loss of life and property, Nishank rang to the Chief Minister from Kedarnath but he was not available. Then Nishank telephoned the Prime Minister and apprised him of the situation and urged the Prime Minister to call in Army to evacuate the people. Only then the relief operations led by a combined command of the armed forces could be started from June 21, Passi added.
Keeping in view the failure of the State Government, the State BJP demands President's rule in Uttarakhand and we urge that the Central Government should support the hill State in a big way so that people of the hill State could pick up threads of their life once again.