Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun
Gadarpur meeting
Following an intervention by the BJP brass in Delhi, former chief minister and Haridwar MP Trivendra Singh Rawat and Garhwal MP Anil Baluni cancelled their proposed meeting with the sulking BJP MLA from Gadarpur, Arvind Pandey at his residence on Thursday. Former cabinet ministers Madan Kaushik and Bishan Singh Chufal were also slated to attend the meeting in Gadarpur which had heated up the political environment of the Himalayan State this month. Pandey, who has been consistent in his attack on the government helmed by his own party on many issues, including the recent suicide of a farmer in Kashipur, was reportedly livid with anger when the Udham Singh Nagar administration served a notice to the MLA asking him to remove an encroachment from his residence cum camp office. Though, the saffron leadership was successful in scuttling the Gadarpur meeting, the decision of TSR, Baluni, Kaushik and Chufal to meet Pandey on the day the Union Home minister Amit Shah was in the State, is being seen as a clear sign of dissidence inside the ruling BJP. With the fissure lines wide open, the manoeuvres of key saffron leaders will be keenly watched by everyone in the coming days.
Dirty green?
Ever since he registered a case in the Basant Vihar police station for finding the elusive VIP in the Ankita Bhandari murder case, the noted environmentalist and recipient of Padmashree, Anil Prakash Joshi is under attack from various quarters. The people are asking his locus -standi in the Ankita Bhandari murder case and reasons for his sudden interest in the case following large-scale protests in different parts of the State on the demand of a CBI probe in the murder of Ankita, following new disclosure made by Urmila Sanawar, the estranged wife of former BJP MLA Suresh Rathore. Questions are also being asked about the projects undertaken by Joshi and now an advocate has registered a complaint against Joshi for encroachment of forest land in Sukhlapur in Dehradun. In his complaint to the divisional forest officer, the advocate has alleged that the campus of Joshi’s pet project Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation (HESCO) is increasingly encroaching upon the nearby forest land.
Magnanimous MPs
The member of parliament local area development (MPLAD) fund of Tehri Lok Sabha MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal and former Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Vijay has come under cloud following a right to information (RTI) query revelation according to which funds were donated by the MPs for development works in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and some other States. The MPLAD funds of these MPs were used in works such as construction of schools, community halls, roads and tube wells in these States. The disclosure created discomfiture for the BJP and gave ammunition to the opposition Congress to attack the ruling party. The clarification given by the MPs that the funds were given for works in other States because the people of Uttarakhand origin also reside there added fuel to the fire with the opposition terming it as a betrayal of the faith of people who had voted for them.
