Chief Minister Harish Rawat has finally backtracked from his much-vaunted earlier resolve on holding a Cabinet meeting at Kedarnath. What triggered the flip-flop on the emotive matter on the part of the Chief Minister who boasts of his steely resolve never flagging under adverse circumstances is still murky. However, it seems he opted for the U-turn in the wake of the Kedarnath MlA Shailarani Rawat, who has recently courted controversy for having provoked people to commit suicide, remaining in a sulk-mode. Sources close to her said she was booked on the charges of provoking suicide after she had gone hammer and tongs against the CM.
Wily
Pithoragarh MlA Mayukh Mahar, who was known as an acolyte of the Chief Minister Harish Rawat, has reiterated he would continue raising voice unless and until the State Government comes out with concrete assurances regarding development of his Assembly constituency. Sources, however, believe the whole thing is stage-managed. With the anti- Rawat faction breathing down his neck, demanding prompt reshuffle of his Cabinet so as to facilitate inclusion of a few more MlAs from the ruling party, the wily Rawat himself prodded his close confidante to raise voice against him by way of a pre-meditated strategy so that he could convince the party high command to include him in the reshuffled Cabinet just to make him to hold fire.
Retrogressive
MlA Kunwar Pranav Singh Champion, who is known for his uncanny skill to stay put in the limelight all for wrong reasons, currently threatened a private company after the company had retrenched its staff. The staff having approached the MlA to fight for their cause so that the company cannot fire them at will and instead, reinstate those already fired, the MlA Champion has plunged headlong in championing their cause. Now the question is- would such rhetoric and action advance the cause of the State, desperately seeking investment from the entrepreneurs for economic resuscitation or make the State keep vegetating in the stultifying bogs of stagnationIJ
Out of bounds
Secretariat, the place where you can meet Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary, Secretary, Joint Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, gets deserted after the lunch hour these days because the Chief Minister Harish Rawat keeps convening review meetings involving Assembly constituencies and the government departments. Things going on this way, the Babus keep on leaving the secretariat for Bijapur guest house, leaving just a note behind. So things are clear. If you want to meet any of them you must reach the portals of the guest house in Bijapur. Does it not sound splendidIJ
Fire-fighting
The corridors of power are abuzz with stories- concocted or otherwise- that the crafty Chief Minister has gagged the long screaming dissidents effectively by subtly flaunting his resolve to have the gamut of land and other scams probed. For instance, the redoubtable State Cabinet Minister Harak Singh Rawat, who kept on spewing fire, has slumped into stony silence. Everybody knows his name figured in such a scam. With skeletons tucked in their respective cupboards, many of the Cabinet Ministers are now keeping discreet distance from the CM. Many of them, including Preetam Singh, Harak Singh Rawat and Indira Hridayesh, are conspicuously shunning the CM’s review meetings. These days, only a handful of ministers like Mantri Prasad Naithani, Harish Chandra Durgapal, Preetam Singh Panwar and Dinesh Dhanai are seen closeted with the CM.