Gajendra Singh Negi | Dehradun
Rawat’s truce
Truce seems to have prevailed in the Uttarakhand Congress after party stalwart Harish Rawat decided to cancel his proposed Yatras in different parts of the State following the diktat of the Congress high command. Rawat ostensibly wanted to thank his supporters who had wished him speedy recovery during his illness by undertaking Dhanyawad Yatras in the State.
The tremendous response received by the veteran leader on his return to the State in Haridwar and Dehradun probably perturbed the camp followers of state party chief Ganesh Godiyal and Harak Singh Rawat and on their complaint, the high command directed the senior Rawat to stop his solo show in the State.
After initial defiance and holding a mega show of strength in Terai belt, Rawat seems to have finally fallen in line but his grudge on being sent on side-lines of the party’s affair in the Himalayan State is clear as crystal. It is very likely that considering the following he still commands and the fact that if pushed further, he can put a spanner in the party’s grandiose plan for return to power in Uttarakhand, the Congress high command will accommodate Rawat in scheme of things and give few tickets to candidates of his choice in upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections.
Saffron slide?
The crushing defeats suffered by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party candidates in the Kichha and Sirauli Kalan municipal elections have sounded warning bells for the saffron party in the politically important Udham Singh Nagar district. What is a matter of concern for the BJP is that in Kichha, its purported strategy to divide the electorate on communal lines failed and Hindus voted in large numbers for the Congress candidate.
Though, the election in both the municipal bodies was an electoral test of strength for local Congress MLA Tilak Raj Behed and his arch rival BJP’s Rajesh Shukla before the Vidhan Sabha elections, in which Behed triumphed, the election results exhibited the mood of urban electorate in Udham Singh Nagar district which is considered as the stronghold of the ruling BJP. It is worth mentioning here that in the last Vidhan Sabha elections, Congress had the upper hand in Udham Singh Nagar district as its candidates won five out of nine assembly seats with chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami facing defeat in his traditional Khatima constituency.
Apart from being the home district of CM Dhami, US Nagar is represented in Vidhan Sabha by cabinet minister Saurabh Bahuguna and former minister Arvind Pandey. The municipal elections result should make them uneasy.
Hostile Doon
Dehradun once had a reputation of being the city of ‘grey hair and green hedges’ as it was a favourite destination for people to lead a laidback post retirement life amid lush green environs. However, this image received a severe drubbing in the last 15-20 years with swathes of green spaces giving way to concrete buildings and pathetic urban planning by the successive governments. After losing its green cover, the city now is turning out to be fatal for the elderly.
The city has a good population of the elderly who live alone in their houses with their off- springs working in metros or foreign destinations and they become easy prey for the criminal elements. Most recently, an elderly couple and 55 year old househelp were stabbed to death by a plumber over a trivial payment dispute over plumbing charges. It is advisable that both the society and the authorities should work in tandem to take immediate measures to ensure safety of the elderly.
