Sunday, 30 April 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The use of the term ‘Uttarakhandiyat’ by former chief minister and senior Congress leader Harish Rawat for the title of his book has become a topic of political debte. The BJP MLA from Tehri and former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Kishore Upadhyaya started the debate when he objected to the use of the word Uttarakhandiyat by Rawat by stating that it was he who first of all used the word and Rawat had stolen it from him. He claimed that in the year 2006 Rawat had asked what is Uttarakhandiyat.
The PCC president Karan Mahara launched a counter offensive on Upadhyaya in the book release programme on Saturday. “The person who was very vocal for the rights of the forest dwellers and scourge of migration when in Congress party has now become silent on these issues after joining BJP,’’ he said.
Joining the debate, BJP leader and statehood activist Ravinder Jugran said that Rawat was demanding creation of a hill council when the people were on the streets demanding for a separate State of Uttarakhand. He claimed that Rawat played a negative role when a 31 member delegation led by Indramani Badoni met the then Prime Minister Narshima Rao in which an in principle decision was made to make Uttarakhand a union territory (UT). He claimed that Rawat misled Sonia Gandhi on the subject of UT after which he sabotaged the attempt of Rao to make Uttarakhand a UT. Jugaran said that there is a difference in words and actions of Harish Rawat.
