Firing a fresh salvo at the BJP on Friday, deposed Chief Minister Harish Rawat said that if the saffron party wanted to rid India of the rule of the Congress or any other non-BJP party they must attempt it through the process of election, the only means left in a functioning democracy to establish absolute sway.
“Things started with Arunachal Pradesh. The experiment repeated in Uttarakhand. Now, it is the turn of other States having Congress Governments to be ousted. The threat looms large over all non-BJP-ruled States,” he said while addressing the media persons at Bijapur guest house. Among those who were present on the occasion were Indira Hridayesh, Mantri Prasad Naithani, Sarbat Karim Ansari, Rajkumar and Haridas.
“A ruling party acting biased towards other parties is not as bad as the ruling party launching vendetta with a sinister motive to dislodge democratically elected Governments,” Rawat said.
Invoking the qualities of multi-party democracy, the ex-CM said myriad parties should ideally co-exist, differences in ideology, costume and culture notwithstanding. “Differences are the bedrock under which participatory democracy should function. Now what is happening in the State are reverse of what things ought to be. The activists of a party staging rallies are being attacked,” he said, adding that the people, enraged with blatant intolerance eating its way into the political life, are looking forward to the Congress, the true repository of the democratic values of infinite tolerance for dissents.
Expressing thanks to CPI, AAP, UKD and SP aside from several Chief Ministers like Nitish Kumar and Arvind Kejriwal, Rawat said it was time for all committed to democracy to come together to fight Fascism.
Sounding unhappy over the cabinet decisions being abrogated through executive fiats, he said this was an affront to the principal pillar of democracy. “An elected government alone has the right to change cabinet decisions taken by the earlier government,” he said, adding that he was in favour of developing the State through consensus .
Former education minister Mantri Prasad Naithani said that a delegation of the guest teachers led by him had met the Governor to apprise him of the cabinet decision taken on their recruitment .
Rawat said that the cabinet had allocated fund for the recruitment of teachers against the vacant posts. “We released funds from the Chief Minister’s relief fund. We stressed on such recruitment numbering around 2000 in the border districts. However, executive fiats are now scarping cabinet decisions, one after another,” Rawat said.
Referring to excise policy, Rawat said that his government had linked excise with horticulture, a move that, if implemented, would have raised volume of the agriculture produce many times. “We would not brook any attempt to alter it,” he said.
While steering clear of the matters now pending before the court, the former CM said that solicitor general Mukul Rohtagi was degrading the dignity of the post he was holding through rolling out irresponsible statements. “Besides, a senior BJP leader compared the dissident Congress leaders to nullah,” he said, in a bid to drive wedges between BJP and the renegade Congress MlAs.
Welcoming the comment made by another former Chief Minister of the State ND Tiwari on defection, Rawat said his statement had steeled his resolve to fight the Centre and BJP on the matter.