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The ruling Congress has heaved sigh of relief after the met department predicted no rains in the next few days in Uttarakhand where for the first time a three day session of the vidhan sabha begins tomorrow outside Dehradun in a make-shift tent at Gairsain, a nondescript hilly township in the state’s central zone.
Chief Minister Harish Rawat has described the session as “historic” as he claims it will usher a new era of development for the remote hilly areas of the state. Earlier this week, Rawat chaired a cabinet meeting at yet another hilly town of Almora to show that the hill development was a top priority in his agenda.
“We want to fulfill the dreams of our statehood activists,” said Rawat, who is also looking for a safe assembly seat to become an MLA.
The government will try to curtail its expenditures by not pressing its lone helicopter to fly Chief Minister Harish Rawat along with his cabinet colleagues from Dehradun to Gairsain. Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar along with other top bureaucrats will also travel by cars to attend the session which is the first of its kind in the brief 14 year history of the hill state. “We all are going by cars to Gairsain,” said Surendra Kumar, a spokesperson of the state government.
The Chief Minister has so far refused to accord any capital status to Gairsain. But political observers acknowledged that the Gairsain move may be an astute political move to exploit the sentiments of thousands of statehood activists, who want the town be made the permanent capital of Uttarkahand.
Ever since Derhadun was made interim capital in 2000, the shrill for the permanent capital status to Gairsain, a small town in Chamoli district, has refused to die down in the state.
