Dehradun: Ahead of the Assembly elections, political parties in Uttarakhand are making statements on the creation of new districts and taking a dig at each other over the decade-long unfulfilled poll promise.
While the demand for the creation of new districts has been pending for a decade now, this time it was Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who raised the issue paving way for political rhetoric on the matter by other parties too.
"Within one month of forming the government, we will create six new districts," an excited Kejriwal announced in Kashirpur on December 14 sending rival parties in a tizzy as they, too, began to look for their cards.
Read: Arvind Kejriwal makes 2022 Uttarakhand election pitch; 6 new districts on the cards
Senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat claimed that as the CM in 2016, he had arranged Rs 100 crore for nine new districts, and the process of constituting more than 37 tehsils and sub-tehsils was also started.
Rawat claimed that if the opposition parties had not disturbed his government, the districts would have been in existence today.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Madan Kaushik attacked Delhi CM Kejriwal on the formation of new districts.
He asked Kejriwal how many new districts had he created in Delhi. "They should share this information first. These are only parties making announcements at the time of elections, the reality has nothing to do with them," said Kaushik. He said that the government had constituted a committee for the creation of new districts and a decision would be taken only after its report.
New districts: A promise never fulfilled
The demand gained attention when in 2011 the then Chief Minister and BJP leader Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced the creation of four new districts--Kotdwar, Yamunotri, Ranikhet and Didihat--Nishank, however, resigned as the CM paving the way for Bhuvan Chandra Khanduri.
During his term as the Chief Minister, Khanduri, too, issued a mandate for the four districts, but soon elections were held in the state and Congress came into power.
The demand for new districts kept on rising even as the new Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna constituted a 3-member commission under the chairmanship of the Chairman of the Revenue Council and asked it to prepare a report on the formation of the districts.
Bahuguna, too, resigned from his post in 2014 further halting any progress on the matter.
While Harish Rawat claims he had arranged Rs 100 crore for nine new districts, no actual development took place on this front.
For now, it seems, the creation of the new districts will take centre stage in the upcoming elections, though the actual fulfilment of the promises may again be put on the backburner once the elections conclude.
