State BJP president and leader of the Opposition Ajay Bhatt said that his party is resolved to emancipate Uttarakhand from the ‘vicious grip’ of the Congress and its Chief Minister Harish Rawat. He said this while addressing a women delegation of the party which had come to tie on him rakhi on the occasion of Rakshabandhan in Dehradun on Thursday.
“Setting the State free from the stranglehold of the Congress is an imperative to bring happiness and development in the State. CM Harish Rawat has taken the State backward. He is indulging corruption with impunity. Things are such that the Congress leaders themselves are raising accusing fingers at the CM. However, the CM is adamant that no probe would be held into the graft charges. Whenever things turn serious he keeps threatening to quit,” Bhatt said.
The State BJP chief dared the CM to conduct inquiry into the graft charges raised when his party was in power. “He is having all the agencies under his thumb. He is free to order inquiry. But he would not dare as the table would turn upon him with skeletons tumbling out of his cupboard. Things are so serious that the CM along with many of his close aides might land in jail if things are stretched to their full length ,” he said.
Referring again to the graft charges involving the BJP regime in the past, he said that the BJP leaders against whom graft charges were raised have got clean chits from the courts in most of the cases. “However, CM Rawat keeps raking such issues to show his innocence and malign the image of others. This is part of his vicious political game of mud–slinging,” Bhatt said.
Commenting on the former BJP MlA Bhim lal Arya criticising the CM, Bhatt said that it was Harish Rawat who had provoked him to go against the BJP to weaken the party from within. “Now, the purpose being served, Rawat is throwing him out like a squeezed lemon. The same thing happened to the State Congress president Kishore Upadhyay,” he said.
Referring to the helpless plight of Bhimlal Arya, a Dalit, he said the Congress’s empathy for Dalit is spurious. “He uses the community just as a vote bank,” he said.
Talking about the Nari Niketan, the State-run home for the destitute women which CM visited on Thursday to celebrate Rakshabandhan, Bhatt dubbed it as a sheer joke. “How can the State forget that the foetus of an inmate of the home was aborted a few months ago and he proved instrumental in covering it upIJ We demanded a CBI probe into the sordid episode. But CM did not go for that lest some close to him were exposed” he said.
Asked to comment on the speculations on the election being advanced with BJP far from selecting its candidates, Bhatt said that the party’s Parliamentary board would take the final call as far as the selection of the candidates is concerned.
“If anyone has any issue he should speak to the State leadership or national leadership instead of commenting in media. This stands against the culture BJP nurtures. It has been noticed that some are speaking against the party’s policy. This is unacceptable. We would not brook such indiscipline anymore,” he said.