PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun
The Bharatiya Janata Party has once again questioned the Haldwani MLA Sumit Hridayesh for becoming more active before the Supreme Court hearing in the case of encroachment on railway land in Vanbhulpura area of Haldwani city. The party alleged that the Congress MLAs and leaders are doing injustice to the future, development and the law and order in Haldwani by supporting encroachers.
The BJP State spokesman Vikas Bhagat said this referring to a photograph of Hridayesh and senior Congress leader meeting senior advocate Salman Khurshid which is reportedly going viral on social media. He said that this photo appears to be “making fun of the development works in Haldwani”. He said, “On the one hand, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s special support, the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami is consistently boosting development in the State with a package of Rs 2,200 crore for Haldwani’s development. On the other hand, the Haldwani MLA is bent upon taking the city back to the ancient times,” Bhagat said.
He questioned why the MLA repeatedly visits Delhi regarding the Vanbhulpura case. It appears as if the effort is to keep on deferring the hearing in Supreme Court and keep the matter pending. It is with this intention that the Congress has fielded its expensive and talked about advocate Salman Khurshid to fight this case and the strategy of repeatedly seeking dates is being adopted, he said.
The BJP spokesman further claimed that the people of Haldwani are also questioning the special affection for those encroaching in Uttarakhand. He said that supporting encroachment is injustice to the future of the city, its development and the law and order.
The SC was expected to deliver its verdict in the Vanbhulpura case on December 2. It was deferred to December 10 and then to a later date.
It will be recalled that about 29 acre land of the Railways in the area was encroached upon by 4,365 families. The Uttarakhand High Court had directed the removal of the encroachments in December 2023, after which the affected persons had approached the Supreme Court which had granted a stay on the demolitions.
