By Gajendra Singh Negi
Tweet terror
By venting out his anger in a series of tweets, Congress stalwart Harish Rawat has taken the ongoing war of supremacy in the Uttarakhand Congress to a decisive stage. Rawat who is carrying the baggage of the aspirations of the Congress party on his aged but strong shoulders throughout the length and breadth of the Himalayan state with zeal and energy which could put any young leader to shame got miffed when he found out that the camp antagonistic to him is being given undue favour by those maneuvering things from Delhi. It appears that Rawat who knows it pretty well that he is at the fag end of his career wants to settle the issue of leadership in the state Congress ahead of the crucial assembly polls. By unleashing his fury in form of a twitter storm the wily leader also intends to ensure that he is given a carte blanche in the affairs of the party in the Himalayan state including the distribution of tickets for the upcoming elections.
Transfer Tale
In an example that the much hyped Transfer act of the BJP government is for the lesser mortals and is not a hindrance in the way of the powerful, the better half of a prominent Neta ji who, apart from being a former union minister is a member of parliament from the state, was transferred to Dehradun from a school located in Pithoragarh district. Her transfer is not the isolated case as many others including the close relatives of the politicians and top Babus have been given favour in gross violations of the norms. With the elections drawing closer, all the ministers of the Dhami cabinet are under immense pressure from different quarters for transfers and attachments of employees before the enforcement of the model code of conduct (MCC). It is learnt that brainstorming on the lists for attachments – which is a convenient way of bypassing the transfer act, is going in different wings of the government and in all probability, these attachments would be done just before the MCC is put into force.
Ominous Omicron
The arrival of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the Covid-19 just ahead of the Christmas in the Himalayan state should be taken with all the seriousness the microscopic enemy deserves. The fact that this mutant has already posed a grave challenge for the many governments of the world and can ignite the third wave of the pandemic in our country clearly means that the general public should not let its guard down against the dreaded disease. Mathematically the threat percentage is more for Uttarakhand because the elections in the state are scheduled in early 2022 and the political parties have already started their campaign. In such a situation the election commission (EC) should come out with some drastic measures such as imposing a ban on election rallies to prevent the spread of the virus. Similarly the state government should set in place an effective monitoring system on all aspects of the disease and ensure 100 per cent vaccination of the population.
