The Satat Vikas Sankalp Yatra of the Congress in Uttarakhand will begin from the Khanpur Vidhan Sabha constituency in Haridwar lok Sabha constituency on November 19. The following days will see the campaign being conducted in all the 70 Vidhan Sabha constituencies of Uttarakhand before its conclusion in Dehradun on the occasion of the Congress national president Sonia Gandhi’s birthday on December 9. The Pradesh Congress Committee is attempting to get the party’s national vice president Rahul Gandhi to address the gathering on the occasion in Dehradun, said the Uttarakhand PCC president Kishore Upadhyay.
Addressing the media at the Congress Bhawan here on Tuesday, the PCC president retained his long standing focus on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union Government’s alleged negative bias towards the Congress-led Uttarakhand State Government. Releasing the schedule of the Satat Vikas Sankalp Yatra to be held in view of the coming Vidhan Sabha elections, he informed that the campaign will be conducted in five segments to cover all the assembly constituencies in five lok Sabha constituencies of Uttarakhand. The focus of this campaign will be on raising public awareness on the various achievements of the Congress-led State Government under Harish Rawat as the chief minister and the alleged negative bias of the BJP-led Union Government towards Uttarakhand State Government. Upadhyay further averred that the State Government had achieved considerable development in the condition of the state hit hard by the 2013 disaster. He said that informing the people about aspects of the committed manner of work in which the Congress-led State Government is progressing towards integrated development is the aim of the Satat Vikas Sankalp Yatra which will start on November 19 from Khanpur assembly constituency on the occasion of India’s first lady prime minister Indira Gandhi’s 100thbirth anniversary, he said. This leg of the campaign will then progress in Manglaur constituency on November 20, Jhabreda onNovember 21, Bhagwanpur on November 22, Jwalapur on November 23, Piran Kaliyar onNovember 24, Roorkee on Novmber 25, laksar on November 26, Haridwar rural on the next day followed by BHEl-Ranipur on November 28, Rishikesh on November 29 and Doiwala on December 1 where it will make a halt for rest.
The second segment of the Satat Vikas Sankalp Yatra will be held from November 21 in Champawat assembly constituency in Almora parliamentary constituency with the garlanding of the statue of Indian freedom movement activist Harsh Dev Oli and interaction with the public there. The following days will see the campaign being held in lohaghat on November 22, Pithoragarh on November 23, Didihat onNovember 24, Dharchula on November 25, Gangolihat on November 26, Jageshwar onNovember 27, Almora on November 28followed by campaign in Someshwar,, Kapkot, Bageshwar, Dwarahat and Ranikhet before concluding on December 4 at the Shaheed Sthal at Maulekhal in Sult constituency.
The third and fourth segments of the campaign will cover assembly constituencies in various parts of the state, while the fifth segment will begin from November 25 in Tehri constituency and later covering Ghansali, Pratapnagar, Gangotri, Yamunotri, Dhanaulti, Purola, Chakrata and other assembly constituencies before concluding on Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s birthday on December 9 in Dehradun where a public gathering is slated to be held on the Parade Ground with the party’s national vice president Rahul Gandhi expected to address the people on the occasion.
Upadhyay said that the campaign will entail a day-long programme at various levels – city, village, area- in each assembly constituency of the state raising public awareness on “achievements” of the Congress and detrimental actions of the BJP.
Differences between PCC prez and CM still a burning issue
While the Congress leadership works to motivate the party cadre to give an “impressive response” to the Parivartan Yatra of the Bharatiya Janata Party to be launched in Uttarakhand by its national president Amit Shah on November 12, sources within the party state that one of the major areas of focus is resolving the various issues on which the Pradesh Congress Committee president Kishore Upadhyay and Chief Minister Harish Rawat have had differences. The All India Congress Committee general secretary and Congress state in charge Ambika Soni is slated to arrive in Dehradun on Tuesday and also address party workers at the Congress Bhawan in the afternoon. Party sources state that one of the main tasks for Soni in this visit was to sort out or at least improve the status of issues on which there has been open disagreement within the party especially in the difference of opinion between the PCC chief and the CM. This task appears to have been made “easier” for Soni considering the recent softening of stance displayed by the PCC chief Kishore Upadhyay who had expressed his opinion about willingness to undertake efforts required to achieve agreement at all levels within the party to strengthen the position of the party organisation and state government while also boosting its chances of being voted to office in the coming polls. However, analysts do not rule out the occurrence of some political or related “development” in the coming days which may create yet another ripple in the state politics and the position of Congress party and its leaders in Uttarakhand.