Ruling out any possibility of a thaw in the frosty relation between the deposed Chief Minister Harish Rawat and him, Harak Singh Rawat who had led the dissident Congress MlAs into raising the flag of revolt in the State Assembly on March 18, said on Thursday that they resembled two embankments of a river. "They can see each other, but cannot merge," he said.
“The rupture is final and irreversible and the twain can never reunite," he said after the former CM Vijay Bahuguna and some other dissident MlAs, including him, garlanded the statue of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar at Clock Tower in Dehradun to mark the latter's birth anniversary.
Bahuguna, who was accompanied, among others, by two renegade Congress MlAs —Umesh Sharma Kau and Subodh Uniyal—aside from Rawat, said in an acid-dripping attack that Harish Rawat had murdered democracy by gagging the voice of the dissidents inside the House. “He proved that he has scant respect for the Constitution Ambedkar had taken immense pains to draft. The constitutional norms were trampled upon. Now, by way of irony, he is now garlanding the legend's statue and going verbose over his contribution as the architect of the Constitution. This is because he is bent on safeguarding his vote bank which is depleting fast with his real face having come out through the sting CD, that showed him as an incorrigibly greedy politician ready to stoop to any low to cling to power," he said.
Continuing with his no-holds-barred attack on his arch-rival, Bahuguna said that the Speaker acting as a stooge of Rawat during the crucial time when the Opposition and the Congress dissidents were pressing for division of votes on the appropriation Bill had goaded them to storm into the well to articulate protest.
Referring appreciatively to the role the Governor has been playing since the imposition of the President's Rule, Bahuguna said the way the Government machinery is engaged in crushing illegal mining while penalizing the operators deserves full-throated praise from one and all.
"It is now clear how illegal mining was thriving for so long a time under the protective Harish Rawat dispensation. They never gave the law-enforcers free hand to deal with the operators as all had share in the mining pie," he said.
He further said that he had asked Rawat to come down heavily on the illegal miners with the State exchequer incurring huge losses due to them. "But he was adamant to let them loot the State and nature," Bahuguna said.
Hinting that many more from the Congress ranks might jump the ship and join them in the coming days if Harish Rawat is allowed to retain leadership, Harak Singh Rawat said all the Cabinet Ministers had been utterly unhappy with Harish Rawat's dictatorial style of functioning. "However, we showed our courage of conviction while saying things straight without beating around the bush," he said.
Referring to the now infamous Harish Rawat boast- "na khata na bahi jo bole Harish Rawat wahi sahi" - Harak said it was unimaginable that a leader in a functioning democracy could have gone to such a ludicrous extent while flaunting his power.
Reiterating his stance that there is still room for reviewing their decision, the dissident Congress leader said that to make it happen, the party brass must show Harish Rawat the door.