The scheduled five- day Winter Session of Vidhan Sabha in Bharadisain (Gairsain) being abruptly adjourned on the second day has left the people, residing in the villages in the vicinity of Bharadisain, fuming with anger who dubbed it as a mere squandering of funds from the cash-strapped exchequer of the State over nothing better than a picnic involving the Ministers, the lawmakers and the high brass of the bureaucracy. “They are taking us, the highlanders, for a ride while trying to tickle our emotions over the issue of capital shift from the plains to the hills,” runs the collective critical refrain among the villagers.
They further said that they had initially supported the State Government’s move to hold the winter session in Bharadisain as they took it as a long-awaited serious move in the direction of the final shift of the capital from Dehradun to the centrally located Bharadisain. “However, the abrupt adjournment of the much-hyped session in just a couple of days after the Ministers, the law makers and Babus enjoyed the picnic has shocked us. This is a flippancy which has reduced the emotions of the people on the sensitive issue to trash. Both the ruling and the opposition parties must share the blame of the fiasco as they fled failing to bear the chilling cold here. They must be serious or else they would face collective anger of the highlanders,” said an elderly villager from a village just a few kms away from where the gaudy Assembly edifice is situated.
Another villager echoed the same sentiment, saying that both Congress and BJP are averse to shifting the capital from Dehradun to Gairsain despite the lip service they pay to the emotive issue while in power and out of power. “They are playing with our emotions while trashing the sentiment that fired the statehood stir, finally culminating in the formation of the mountain state. BJP as the ruling party must take the final call on the issue and at the earliest too, ending their studied ambivalence,” he added.
Many raised the issue of several VVIPs, including the Chief Minister, flying here to attend the session on the choppers which incurred huge expenses from the state’s coffers. “Had they been really serious about development of the hills they should have come by the roads, seeing how things are vegetating in the villages and why they are being emptied out of the populations over the years, the deplorable condition of the roads, the crumbling education and health facilities and the like,” said another villager.