Throwing a dare to Chief Minister Harish Rawat who is supposed to be in favour of declaring Gairsain as the State capital of Uttarakhand well before the State plunges into the heat and dust of electioneering, the senior Congress leader and State agriculture minister Harak Singh Rawat said again that there is no point in raising the issue sine Gairsain is bereft of the required infrastructural foundation and others for the purpose.
Earlier too, he had raised a storm on the emotive issue, saying the same. “There is no point because the place being flaunted as the future capital has seen no development while crores of rupees are being spent on infrastructural development in Dehradun,” he said, something that the Opposition BJP might grab with alacrity as a stick to beat the ruling party with. The minister said this in Haridwar on Friday as he came to distribute free crates among the Mandi Samiti members.
The minister’s statement is likely to create ripples in the ruling party as the stance is being construed as an open defiance thrown to the CM who have had two Assembly sessions held in Gairsain, making it clear where his empathy lies.
Asked to comment on the issue by the media persons, the minister said that his stand is invincible. “I am unshakably convinced that it is not a compulsion that only a hill town can be the capital of the hill State. This makes no sense,” he said.
Mention worthy, the minister Harak Singh Rawat has already made an announcement that he would not contest the 2017 Assembly polls from Rudraprayag, the constituency whence he had been elected during the 2012 election.
Speaking to The Pioneer, he said, “For a long time, the developmental focus has remained focused on Dehradun district. All major government buildings and housing complexes worth crores of rupees have been built in Dehradun. Now, it is futile to pitch for Gairsen being made the permanent capital of the State which hardly has any infrastructure.”
Earlier, the minister said that the Samiti was engaged in distribution of free fruit tree saplings to the farmers. He said they must provide the farmers with the latest technology to equip them better for better produce.
He said it would help them to increase the volume of their produce many times. He said under crop insurance scheme, 50 percent reimbursement was being given by the State Government to the farmers from its own resources.