Recent outburst of senior Cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat against the bureaucracy has given ammunition to opposition Congress to attack the BJP government of Uttarakhand. The minister apparently peeved at Additional Chief Secretary ( ACS), Om Prakash for putting obstacles in the construction of Kandi road, connecting Ramnagar in Kumaon with Kotdwar in Garhwal had threatened that he could sit on a hunger strike for construction of the road. Catching the issue lobbed by the mercurial leader gleefully, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) President Pritam Singh said that the Congress party support Harak Singh Rawat if he starts a Dharna against the government. The leader of opposition (LoP) in the state assembly Indira Hridayesh too extended her support for any agitation Harak undertakes.
On Friday, the Vice President of the Congress party, Surya Kant Dhasmana said that the statements of the minister regarding the attitude of the bureaucrats points towards a very disturbing trend in the state. He said that the minister has said that the bureaucracy is ignoring the ministers in the day to day functioning, which shows that a situation of policy paralysis has set in the state. Dhasmana also added that the Congress party would sit alongside Harak Singh if starts a Dharna against government. The spokesperson of the state congress, R P Raturi dared Harak Singh Rawat to start agitation.
He said that utterances of the minister have proved that the ministers have become redundant in Uttarakhand.Harak Singh Rawat created flutter on Wednesday when he expressed his annoyance over the approval of leaves of the senior officials of the forest department including department head at a time when incidents of forest fires are increasing. The minister was peeved as the foreign trip of these officials working under him was sanctioned directly by the office of chief minister.
Harak continued his attack on Thursday when he trained his guns on the ACS, Om Prakash. Political observers opine that the Harak Singh Rawat has a past record of enacting such scenes to increase his bargaining power within the government. “He is feeling suffocated in this government because he is not allowed the kind of freedom he enjoyed during his previous stints as minister. He is too shrewd to take his opposition beyond a certain point in the current situation,’’ said one political observer.