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Groom halts wedding procession to join protest for reopening road in Nainital
The Uttarakhand Congress said the Kathgodam-Haidakhan road was closed after landslides on November 15 for repairs and hadn’t been reopened since then. The BJP responded that technical surveys were being carried out by BRO and THDC for a permanent solution.
HALDWANI: Congress leaders staged a protest on Haidakhan road in Uttarakhand’s Nainital district on Tuesday demanding the opening of the Kathgodam-Haidakhan road that has been closed for the last month.
A wedding procession, which was passing through the area, also stopped and the groom joined the protesters for a few minutes to pose for photographs. The groom, Rahul Kumar, a resident of Kotabagh who was on his way to Parsauli village on Haidakhan road, said they had to walk 4km on foot because the road hadn’t been reopened. “This road has been damaged for a long time but the situation turned worse after the landslide. Other wedding guests and I had to face difficulties to reach here”, he said.
Leader of the opposition Yashpal Arya who was leading the Congress protest, said landslides damaged a stretch of the road on November 15. “Since then, almost a month has passed, traffic has not resumed on this road.”
“People of about 200 villages are affected by the closure of this road. Patients, the elderly, and pregnant women are facing a lot of difficulties... On the other hand, the crops of farmers are getting wasted as they are unable to ferry them to the markets. But the state government and the administration are not doing anything on this,” he said.
“From the Union minister to the cabinet ministers of the state, all have given assurances that traffic on the road will be started soon, but those assurances have not materialised,” he alleged.
Senior BJP leader in Nainital Pratap Singh Bisht said the demonstration was inspired by politics, not public interest.
“As per the instructions of Union minister of state for defence Ajay Bhatt, the BRO (Border Road Organisation) team conducted a technical inspection of this road. THDC (Tehri Hydro Development Corporation) team is also conducting a technical survey on this road. The team had demanded the closure of the route for some time so that its permanent treatment can be done. Against this backdrop, it is not appropriate for Congress to do such kind of politics here”
