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In winter session at Gairsain, Congress to turn heat on BJP
Uttarakhand Congress is demanding that BJP government declare not only the state’s summer capital but also its permanent capital in the Gairsain session
The week-long winter session of Uttarakhand assembly at Gairsain is likely to be stormy one with the Congress gearing up to corner the BJP government on the state’s permanent capital issue. The session will begin from December 1.
“We demand that the (BJP) government announce the state’s permanent capital in the assembly’s coming session. Let them also clarify on the floor of the House where they are going to set up the state’s summer capital,” Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the House, Congress’s Indira Hridayesh said.
The BJP, in its vision document released before the assembly polls, had promised to set up the summer capital at Gairsain. Statehood activists have long been demanding that the mountain state’s centrally located hill town should be made its permanent capital.
Both the BJP and the Congress that have been alternately ruling the state have yet to concede the demand. The two parties have let the contentious issue remain unresolved fearing that commissioning Gairsain as a permanent capital could evoke a huge backlash from the plains districts.
During the previous Congress regime, then chief minister Harish Rawat, in a bid to mollify paharis (highlanders), promised that Gairsain would be named summer capital. As a follow up action, he also carried forward his predecessor Vijay Bahuguna’s move to set up a Vidhan Sabha Bhawan in that hill town.
Rawat also presided over a cabinet meeting in the hill town besides organsing a couple of assembly sessions. The 2017 assembly polls, however, saw the Congress being replaced by the BJP.
Not in a position to alienate the highlanders, the BJP government too announced that it would hold an assembly session at Gairsain. In the backdrop of this promise, the Congress is now demanding that BJP dispensation declare not only the state’s summer capital but also its permanent capital in the Gairsain session.
“We want this (BJP) government to declare on the floor of the House where it is going to set up a permanent capital and a summer capital,” said Hridayesh.
The BJP government is now in a dilemma. If it declares Gairsain as a summer capital, it would be under pressure to declare the permanent capital as well. And if it chooses to notify Dehradun, a plain area, which has been the state’s provisional capital, as the permanent capital, the move might evoke a backlash from the hill districts.
No wonder, the BJP government is now taking refuge in the legalities. “We can’t comment on the issue of a permanent capital or summer capital in view of the notification that has been issued for the upcoming assembly session,” parliamentary affairs minister Prakash Pant said. “Any announcement on that count would amount to the contempt of the august House,” he added.
Pant added that it was legally mandatory on the BJP government to convene an assembly session at Gairsain. “The decision was taken in view of a notification the previous government had passed in the assembly that one of its sessions would be held there.”
