Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat is trying to work differently on the administrative front, leaving the beaten tracks of governance, as many of his administrative decisions suggest, to put the State on growth path. However, his style of politics has raised question over his ability to take all along.
His position on the political front seems to have turned weaker now vis-a-vis his bête noire and predecessor Vijay Bahuguna.
If it were his political adversaries who precipitated things leading to Bahuguna’s ouster as the head of the State Government early this year things seem to be the same for the incumbent Rawat who is facing the heat of dissidence.
More alarmingly for him, his confidantes who are supposed to have stood by him through thick and thin and played critical roles in installing him in the addle in February are now raising banners
of revolt.
None other than Mayukh Mahar, MlA from Pithoragarh, who had even declined to accept the post of the deputy chairman of State planning commission under the Vijay Bahuguna regime, flaunting his loyalty to Rawat, is now publically accusing his mentor of ignoring his constituency’s development aspirations.
Some other MlAs who were hitherto considered to be among Rawat’s cronies are
following suit, firing salvoes at their mentor.
Support from the majority of the party MlAs had catapulted Rawat to the top job in the State Government, with his political adversaries like senior party leaders Vijay Bahuguna and Satpal Maharaj (now a BJP leader) getting marginalised.
It is now left to the Chief Minister to prove his political acumen by regaining the
confidence of his former
confidantes-turned-adversaries in the State.
Otherwise, his tenure riddled as it is with fault lines might end as ingloriously as that of his bête noire, the observers based in Kumaon said.
With the State Government almost crossing its half-way mark in office, the pressure from the ruling party MlAs is likely to mount with regard to the the long- pending demands of their respective constituencies as Pithoragarh MlA Mahar has been raising of late.
True, he is still enjoying full confidence of the party high command, but things are mired in speculative murkiness.