Arvind Kumar
THE electorate in Sitarganj assembly constituency are seething with deep anger, and are up in arms against local MLA and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, due to being taken for a political ride.A plethora of poll-promises,showered by Bahuguna during his by-election in June and July last year, turned out to be mere will-o-the wisp.Bahuguna seems to have abandoned Sitarganj constituency once for all, because he knows he does not have to seek his re-election from here ever again. Caught in an endless chain of political intrigues and deceits by the Congress Party and Vijay Bahuguna, the general people in the constituency have been pushed to utter despondency.
During his poll-campaign in July 20 last, he laid foundation-stone of Government Polytechnic College at Shakti Farm, and a Government Degree College at Sitarganj, but these educational institutions are yet to come up. On October 25 last, Bahuguna laid foundation-stone of CIDCULPhase-II which was meant to provide employment to 2,000 to 3,000 youths, this promise also is yet to see light of the day. He also promised to establish Industrial Training Institute (ITI) at Sitarganj, but never cared to fulfill it. A former BJP MLA Kiran Mandal, who in an act of treachery vacated his Sitarganj seat to facilitate Bahuguna’s by-election, is now being treated by Bahuguna and the Congress Party as ‘untouchable’ and ‘dirt’. Bahuguna is deliberately washing his hands off all the works he had promised to Kiran Mandal and his Bengali community at the time of vacating the seat.
There is no proper electricity, water supply, road communications in the constituency. Shakti Farm from where the disgraced Kiran Mandal hails is especially being neglected by Bahuguna. Here, the Government. Inter College, Government Hospital have no proper teaching and medical staff and perennially in short supply of medicines, policing is also very poor due to which incidence of crime—like theft, burglary, chain-snatching, picking pockets and intimidation etc.—is on rise.It is to be noted that Shakti Farm is predominately being inhabited by the migrated Hindus from Bangladesh. Bahuguna has also reneged on his earlier promise to Kiran Mandal about granting the migrated Hindus from Bangladesh the bhumidhari rights.
BJP MLA from Gadarpur Arvind Pande said the situation has come to such a pass that BJP’s traitor Kiran Mandal has been reduced to mere black sheep in his own community. Recently, the Bangladeshi migrants contacted Arvind Pande, and other BJP MLAs such as Rajkumar Thukral and Rajesh Shukla to lead their massive agitation against Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, and Kiran Mandal who has been rewarded by Bahuguna with the post of Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam. Earlier, the Bengali people had burnt effigies of Bahuguna and Mandal several times. Then in an act of ultimate protest, even Kiran Mandal’s close relatives performed publicly his funeral rites, and got their heads tonsured collectively.
