Scheduled to go into polls in Feb 2012 to elect a new state government, Uttarakhand, a young hill state is seeking attention and care from the National Congress leadership. UP is seen as a more important field for the Congress party. Party bigwigs including Rahul Gandhi have been spending a lot of time in Uttar Pradesh and have taken keen interest in the events and issues in Uttar Pradesh. Unfortunately, Uttarakhand gets no such importance in national politics and is far from central government scrutiny and attention.
Lack of attention to issues in Uttarakhand has created a major clog in the governance of this state. As much as governance is the responsibility of the ruling government, governance and ensuring good governance is also the most important job of an opposition party. It would not be wrong to say that checking the ruling government and ensuring good governance is an even bigger job of the opposition party than the ruling party itself.
As elections approach, it is time to introspect whether the Congress party has played and is playing the role of a strong opposition party in Uttarakhand. Since the current government came into power by winning the peoples' mandate in 2007, it has constantly been facing several allegations among which the most crucial ones can be singled out to be corruption and lack of development. Other than these, the infamous Nishank government has also under been attack from civil society groups for stalling development projects, for supporting local mafias involved in land scams and excise scams, gross misappropriation of government funds and bias towards women and minorities particularly Muslims and Dalits.
An examination of Government processes and functioning will throw light into irregularities and procedural violations by the Ramesh Pokhriyal government in several matters such as SAF Winter Games, Maha Kumbh at Haridwar, Sturdia Land Scam, MDDA Corruption Scandal etc., None of these issues have been strongly followed up by the Congress in Uttarakhand. The opposition is silent while the ruling party continues to harass people, violate the tenets of the constitution and all law and policy. In the past four years, the Uttarakhand Government has not initiated any programs or policy measures that can be categorized as pro-development policy.
In the past four years, Uttarakhand has witnessed interruptions in power supply and major power cuts including in the provisional capital, Dehradun. The people of Uttarakhand, particularly people living in the higher regions of Uttarakhand have not received any benefits of NREGA or RTI, or central schemes such as NRHM or Ayush. Each of these aspects needs detailed introspection and analysis.
The masses of Uttarakhand seek new leadership. The only change that this state and its people can hope for is a change in power. The people of Uttarakhand will vote for change, will vote for the Congress. During a time so hopeless, the Congress prevails as the only hope for change for many thousands of people who live in Uttarakhand. They look for leadership, for empowerment and for a pioneering movement against the state government.
In spite of the fact that all factors seek immediate intervention by the Congress, the Congress party, its leaders, both national and state are silent. We do not understand this silence. We do not understand whether the Congress is with us, the people. Can we bank on the Congress? Will the Congress come forward to protect us? Will the Congress lead us to good governance and development?
Will the leaders stop treating Uttarakhand as a foster child and pay more attention to people’s needs and issues here?
This time, the people of Uttarakhand ask for intervention from the Congress party. The time is now! The people of Uttarakhand silently and in as many words possible, appeal to the leaders of the Congress party to look into their plight and to lead the people in a movement against anarchy, dictatorship, and the rule of a biased partisan racist gender-biased communal party. Uttarakhand needs resurrection. It is falling into a deep pit of anarchy and chaos. The time is not far when Uttarakhand would soon become another Gujarat led by yet another fascist communal gender biased Chief Minister. Acting now is the only solution to stop another pogrom.
Will the Congress please act before it is too late?
I think Uttrakhand needs a Anna-Hazare type revolution (although I don't completely agree with Hazare). If the Congress doesn't wake up (as is most likely), can an alternative plan or platform be created to make the people aware of the situation.
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ReplyDeleteI strongly protest views of author. It is biased against BJP govt. Secularism is now considered as minorities appeasement accusing hindus as communal. Congress has ruled India for more than 40-45 years after independence and yet it far behind US, China and other developed countries. Congress has looted hard-earned money of Indian tax payers and is not willing to bring back that money to India because they know all big names of congres including sonia, rahul, chidambram, sibbal will be behind the bar if any inquiry is conducted against allegation.
ReplyDeleteHow do support brutal suppression of peaceful movement against corruption by Congress and lathicharge on innocent children, women and senior citizens on 4/5th May 2011????