DEHRADUN: Unable to make the BC Khanduri government declare Gairsain as the capital of the hill state, the Uttarakhand Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti
launched the "Gairsain Rajdhani banao, Uttarakhand bachao'' agitation.
On Sunday, the samiti activists burnt an effigy of the government as a mark of anger and anguish of the Uttarakhand movement activists. Samiti's president Dhirendra Pratap accused the state government of deliberately delaying the declaration of Gairsain as permanent capital in place of Dehradun, which is a temporary capital of the state. He warned the CM against playing with the hopes and aspirations of the "simple people'' of the state who have "sacrificed their time and lives for the development of the 16,000 villages of the state''. "Now, when the Dixit Commission has come out with a report on the permanent capital after a gap of eight years, the government is trying to minimize the importance of the issue,'' he alleged.
Pratap asked the CM to respect the sentiments of the people and table a Bill on this sensitive issue in the forthcoming assembly session starting from December 15.
The Samiti has declared that similar programmes would be held to pressurize "the irresponsible government'' of Uttarakhand to immediately declare Gairsain as the permanent capital of the state.
Referring to government's decision not to make public contents of the Dixit report, Pratap said the state government was keeping "a criminal silence'' on the vital issue