With the intention of providing a new direction to polity in Uttarakhand where the people are disillusioned with the two main political parties, the Uttarakhand Raksha Morcha (URM) and the Sarv Vikas Party (SVP) have decided to contest the Vidhan Sabha election 2017 jointly under the banner of Uttarakhand Bachao Morcha coalition. Addressing the media in Dehradun on Thursday, the URM president VK Bahuguna said that the group had already declared its candidates from various assembly constituencies with the help of new leadership comprising honest, young thinkers and experts in different fields. Bahuguna, who is also a former director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), was addressing the media after the two – URM and SVP held a joint meeting to ascertain their agenda.
Bahuguna said, “The people of Uttarakhand are utterly disappointed with the incompetent, corrupt and selfish ‘high command’ control governments of the two national parties and are looking for an alternative political force which is honest, competent and which is committed to provide a people-oriented innovative responsible governance.
The URM and SVP have decided to raise various vital issues which will be included in the party’s election manifesto.
The focus will be on preventing degradation of the state’s natural resources particularly forests and water and to conserve and sustainably use these resources with active participation of the people and their grass root level organisations. Our manifesto will also focus on increasing the productivity of agriculture and other primary and secondary sector resources both in terms of their uniqueness and diversity of presence in Uttarakhand and their scope for livelihood creation and creation of micro and medium industries based on these resources. Preventing migration of people from the deep interior areas due to lack of adequate educational, health and livelihood opportunities; as also of the wealth from Uttarakhand will be the first priority of this coalition and support to any new regime.
There should be a policy for providing a transparent guaranteed job policy for the youths. For example, the industries investing in the state must go for campus recruitment from ITIs of the state for technical jobs so that our youth don’t have to go outside the state seeking jobs. With different sections of government employees also dissatisfied, our coalition will genuinely work towards accepting their legally supported and constitutionally valid demands.
The coalition will work for a government that recognises the popular sentiments and which can take into account the interests of all sections of the people who live in Uttarakhand and which can provide an innovative, just, fair, transparent and equitable governance that lays the foundation of transformation of social and economic life in the state,” he stated.
Bahuguna further said the they had already selected candidates for various constituencies including Rudraprayag, Chakrata, Dehradun Cantt, Rishikesh, Doiwala, Sahaspur and Vikasnagar among others. The SVP president RK Tewari, its vice president HB Dimri and general secretary Subhash Bhatt also expressed their views on the occasion.