Accusing Bharatiya Janata Party of tarnishing the image of Uttarakhand through engineering defection and awarding the ‘turncoats’ with the party nominations, Chief Minister Harish Rawat said while addressing a Press Conference in Dehradun on Saturday that his party was committed to protecting the self-esteem of the people of the State. He termed his party’s movement as ‘Uttarkahand Swabhiman ki Raksha’ and alleged that a party has been tirelessly trying to pull down his democratically elected Government through devious means, misusing the power they have been enjoying at the Centre.
“The timing of their move to topple my Government was ominous, as we were then engaged in restructuring the State ravaged by the flash flood 2013. Their real intention of thwarting the rehabilitation and reconstruction initiatives was made clearer as they chose to sit on the funds meant for giving succor to the disaster- hit people. They did not clear funds approved by the earlier UPA regime. The UPA Government had approved around `8,000 crore to Uttarakhand as a financial package to rehabilitate the deluge-struck people,” CM said.
Thanking the Supreme Court for saving the democratic system from being trashed by the authoritarian people ruling the Centre, he said that they had given order for the revocation of the President’s Rule and reinstatement of his Sovernment, terming the imposition of the Central Rule as unconstitutional.
“The Centre went for the drastic step based on a sting video that has no substance as per the ruling of the court. However, despite being rebuked by the Supreme Court, those ruling the Centre did not leave their diabolical game. They have unleashed the CBI on me in the name of probing the sting CD,” CM said.
Harish Rawat also took potshots at the Centre for its role in sitting on the State budget-2016-17 that was painstakingly crafted to impart a big boost to the development of the mountain State. “Their ill-treatment of the State continued as they did not release quota of wheat under APl. They also curtailed the quota of kerosene for the State. They shut down the IDPl and HMT as well. Besides, they thwarted the State’s progress by issuing notification of Economic Sensitive Zone. These strings of steps inimical to the interests of the state amount to tramping the self- respect of the State,” he said.
Seeking to counter the Opposition allegation that the State Government had merely announced programmes without arranging back-up budgets for their execution on the ground, CM issued a comparison chart involving some Chief Ministers, excluding ND Tiwari and Vijay Bahuguna. CM claimed that he had made 3,823 announcements and executed 2,170 of them on the ground while 1,379 are under progress.
“Contrast this with 617 announcements made by Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri while was able to execute just 336 of them. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had made 1,937 announcements and implemented mere 643.” he said.