Chief Minister Harish Rawat moves ahead ignoring the Opposition party BJP's criticism to conduct Assembly session at Gairsain on the pretext that it is going to cost dearly to the State exchequer and he also held a Cabinet meeting in his hometown Almora on June 5, but unlike his predecessors, Chief Minister Rawat has failed to hold the customary review meeting of the Kumaon division even after completion of his four months in office, to understand issues of greater public concerns better and see the progress of the various developmental projects of this division.
Though he has so far conducted several visits of different districts of the Kumaon division since taking charge as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Rawat has not yet been able to hold a formal review meeting to address public grievances on priority basis and to get necessary feedback on these matters as his predecessors did.
It may be recalled that soon after becoming the Chief Minister ofUttarakhand in 2009, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, convened a review meeting involving officials from the Kumaon division followed by a press conference in Nainital district to know the area specific concern of the region well and get necessary feedback from the media.
Similarly, the previous CM Vijay Bahuguna took a meeting of the officials concerned from the Kumaon division here to discuss how to improve things on the ground and that meeting was also followed by a press briefing. Rawat has been continuously visiting different parts of Kumaon in both official and personal capacities and in less than a week since June 5, he has visited the Kumaon division including his hometown Mohnari in Almora thrice. He must be discussing things during his interaction with the people, but a formal review meeting of Kumaon has not yet been conducted under his chairmanship .
However, when attention of the officials concerned from the Nainital district administration was drawn towards this issue, they refused to talk on this issues saying it is Government level matter so nothing can be said on it.
Though a Cabinet meeting was also held for the first time in his home district Almora on June 5, it was not enough to address the problems of the entire Kumaon division, people here maintained. A formal meeting to review the progress of ongoing developmental issues and to address the grievances of the public on priority basis, such review meetings are important for a newly appointed Chief Minister to understand things better, they said adding after conducing such meeting, Chief Minister's interaction with the media would have only added to his understanding on the local issues, added the people here.
However, Rawat must have an upper hand over his predecessors as far as the socio- economic life of people of Kumaon region is concerned because he belongs to the same region and more importantly, his political life also originates from the same Kumaon region.
But rather he seems to be hell-bent on holding a state legislative session in Gairsain which is going to cost the state exchequer dearly, as his critics allege.
However, describing the assembly session at Gairsain as historic, Shilpi Arora, state spokesperson of the Congress party in a statement maintained that “Organising assembly session at Gairsain would go a long way in the development of the State. Since the issue of Gairsain is related to the people's sentiments, therefore this matter should not be politicised,” she added.