Friday, 04 August 2023 | Gajendra Singh Negi | DEHRADUN
Delhi Darshan
Recent visits of the CM Pushkar Singh Dhami to New Delhi have intrigued both the political observers and the politicians of the Himalayan State. During these visits, the CM met the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers and saffron party top brass and is learnt to have discussed the Uniform Civil Code, its implementation and ramifications. Other issues concerning the State and the changing political scenario against the backdrop of the emergence of INDIA alliance of the opposition parties might have figured in these meetings. Interestingly, the journos who would link every visit of Dhami to the national capital with an imminent expansion and reshuffle in his cabinet are now maintaining a stupefied silence on this matter. While the camp followers of CM are projecting the frequent meetings of their leader with the BJP top leadership as an indicator of his rising clout, his detractors in the party are said to be nervously fretting over the CM’s growing proximity with the central leadership. Though a few of them claim that since Delhi Darbar is not happy it is regularly summoning him.
Three musketeers
In a recent interaction with the media, the president of Uttarakhand Congress Karan Mahara created a flutter in the party’s state unit by stating that three friends had hatched the conspiracy of tampering with the video of his speech delivered during his Garhwal tour. This video left Mahara embarrassed and he eventually thought it prudent to seek apology from the people of Garhwal. The PCC chief claimed that these three friends were also responsible for circulating the morphed picture of Harish Rawat in which he was shown as a Muslim cleric during the 2022 Assembly elections. This proved detrimental to the Congress party as it lost the elections. The disciplinary committee of the party has started studying the charges against the State general secretary Rajendra Shah who ostensibly is one of the three friends Mahara mentioned. The other two are said to be the staunch supporters of a former PCC president.
Magical babus
The shocking revelation that the file of the seed sale and tags scam that occurred in the year 2016 in the State seeds and organic certification agency is missing from the State secretariat from the last two years has come as a major embarrassment for the State government. The story of the missing file came to the fore after an appeal in the State Information Commission was made under the RTI in the case. The mysterious disappearance of the file assumes significance since the State administration had recommended that considering the seriousness of the scam a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Police should investigate the case. What is even more shocking is that the administration forgot to take further action on the scam for two years during which the file disappeared from the office of a senior IAS officer who was incidentally in jail now in a disproportionate assets case. The disappearance of the file and slumber of the administration in the case also exhibits the magical powers the babus working in the highest administrative office of the State are bestowed with.
