The newly-appointed BJP State president Ajay Bhatt gave a clarion call to the people and the party leaders to end the non-performing rule of the Congress-led State Government during his maiden participation in a mass rally in his new stint at the helm of the State party. “The countdown of the Congress- led State Government has begun and the people are waiting for the upcoming Assembly election to bring BJP back to power,” he said while addressing the Chetna Yatra in Dehradun on Tuesday. The largely attended Chetna Yatra started from Rispana bridge near Vidhan Sabha and ended at the BJP Mahanagar office. Notably, Chetna Yatra was launched on January 4 by its State president Bhatt and after criss-crossing several parts across both Kumaon and Garhwal regions, it reached Dehradun on Tuesday. In the first phase, Chetna Yatra covered Rishikesh, Kotwdear, Kashipur, Rudrapur and Haldwani. While the second phase was confined within Dehradun there are other places it would cover in due course- Vikasnagar on January 15, Srinagar on January16, Rudrapur on January 17 and Chamoli/ Rudraprayag on January 18. In the third phase, the yatra would cover Uttarkashi and Tehri while it would travel through the left-out parts of Kumaon in the fourth phase. Party workers welcomed the yatra at Dharampur, Aara Ghar, Race Course and some other places before the rally reached the party’s city office.
Speakers on the occasion slammed the Congress- led State government for failing to meet the expectations of the people. However, the most remarkable part of the rally was the acceptance of Bhatt as the mass leader by the party’s rank and file. The foot soldiers, demoralised by a strings of the recent electoral defeats, the latest being the Haridwar rural poll debacle, sounded elated when Bhatt was found leading the rally from the front around 3 pm. They were seen dancing enthusiastically to the beat of drums. They burst fire crackers too in anticipation of long elusive ‘good days’ at least for the party.
later, Bhatt along with other party leaders like MlA Ganesh Joshi, former State cabinet minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, Mahanagar president Umesh Aggarwal and others was seen waving to the people from an open-hooted car.
Calling the Chetna Yatra as historic, Bhatt said that people from cross sections of the society across the spectrum of caste, community and creed had enthusiastically participated in the rally, a fact that he dubbed as the approaching end of the Harish Rawat government. Taking a dig at the CM, Bhatt said he had morphed into a builder from a politician. “Ghaziabad Development Authority has hit the nail on his head by issuing him a notice for the violation of the housing construction rules,” he said. “Crimes are on a spiral across the State. People are scared with law and order crumbling,” he added.
Dwelling on host of scams plaguing the State, the BJP leader said the list was endless- disaster relief scam, mining scam, liquor scam and the like. “Intriguingly, the State government keeps sitting on them while fighting shy of high level probes,” he said.
Referring to rising unemployment graph in the State, he said the State government has failed to generate even five per cent employment for the youths, accelerating the pace of migration to other parts of the country for livelihood. “There has been shortage of teachers in schools and doctors in hospitals, especially in the hills. The government on the other hand is slapping fresh taxes on the common people,” he said.