Cong asks Shah to put pressure on Centre to pay attention to

Congress today alleged that the Centre was putting up roadblocks in the development of Uttarakhand and asked BJP chief Amit Shah to mount pressure on the Narendra Modi government to address matters of public interest and resolve the problems faced by the state.

In a letter to the BJP president who is scheduled to address three rallies in the state in the course of the party's Parivartan Yatra, Pradesh Congress President Kishore Upadhyay said despite the difficult geographic location of the hill state, the Centre was putting up hurdles in the path of its development.

"Created as a result of a non-violent struggle, Uttarakhand is a disaster-hit state with meagre resources at its disposal.
 

"Still the Centre keeps putting up roadblocks to impede the growth of the state by creating political and financial crisis for the state government which is working with commitment to take development to the border areas," Upadhyay said.

Claiming that he had drawn the Centre's attention to the problems faced by the state by staging dharnas at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in 2014 and 2015, he said so much time has elapsed since then, but nothing has been done so far.

He said people of the state feel cheated especially because they had voted BJP candidates to victory from all the five Lok Sabha seats in 2014.

Upadhyay demanded quota for people of the state in central government jobs, revival of its special category status, Rs 10,000 crore for construction of a permanent capital of Uttarakhand, compensation of a budgetry loss worth 5,000 crore to the state and release of the remaining amount sanctioned by the cabinet committee on Uttarakhandin the wake of 2013 calamity.

The Congress leader expressed hope that the BJP chief will mount pressure at the Centre to do something about these demands before visiting the state on November 13 to kick off the party's Parivartan Yatra in Uttarakhand.

Shah who is scheduled to flag off the yatra from Dehradun on November 13 with a public rally is also slated to address two more public meetings in Almora and Haldwani on different dates in the course of the yatra which concludes on December 7.