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Uttaranchal's hilly politics threatens new CM Swami

Onkar Singh in Dehradun

Even before the dust could settle on Nityanand Swami's selection as the new chief minister of Uttaranchal, his opponents have struck with vengeance.

Three of the 12 who were to be inducted into the state cabinet refused to take oath on Friday morning. However, unmindful of the crisis facing his fledgeling cabinet, Swami went ahead with the expansion of his ministry in the Parade Grounds, albeit around thirty minutes behind schedule.

Those who did not take the oath include Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, the man who proposed Swami's name for the chief ministership, and the chief of BJP's state unit, Ramesh Pokhariyal (both cabinet rank)and Narain Ram Dass.

Both Pokhariyal and Koshiyari were aspirants for the top job themselves, and had withdrawn their candidature under pressure from the party high command. Their supporters had vandalised the entire stage soon after the oath-taking ceremony was over and Governor Surjeet Singh Barnala and the new chief minister had left the venue on the night of November 8/9. In fact such was the chaos prevailing at the venue that two of the governor's grandchildren could not be located for over an hour.

They were protesting both against the selection of Dehradun as the provisional capital of the new state and also against the choice of a non-pahaari (a non-hill tribal) as chief minister.

"I am the biggest pahaari in this state. I have been living here for 40 years and have visited all the nook and corners of the state. Perhaps more than any of the so-called Pahaari Rawats who migrated from Rajasthan 400 years ago and now claim to be the original residents of Garhwal. Now they say I am from Haryana. Five generations of my family have lived in the state and still they say I am a non-pahaari," Swami told rediff.com .

He also dismissed reports that there was stiff opposition to his candidature from Pokhariyal and Koshiyari.

Meanwhile, those whose kith and kin were either killed or injured in the Uttarakhand agitation are far from happy with the selection of Dehradun as the capital. "These people feel that their sacrifices have gone waste. They are disappointed because they feel what they have got is not what they had envisaged during the agitation," Surya Kant Dhasmana, editor, Vijay Shree magazine, told this correspondent. Dhasmana had helped most of those injured in the struggle for the formation of the new state and had felicitated them in public.

In all 30 persons lost their lives in police firing in Mussoorie, Khatima, Muzaffarnagar, Dehradun, Kotdwar and Srinagar in Garhwal in separate incidents between 1994 and '95. Most of those who were killed were between the ages of 20 and 30 and unemployed. One police officer, Uma Kanth Tripathi, also lost his life in Mussoorie. Among those who were injured included a noted lawyer from Mussoorie, Rajinder Singh Panwar. It is also alleged that many women were raped during the agitation.

Entertaining a writ petition filed by a local citizen, the Allahabad high court had ordered the UP government to pay Rs 10 lakh each to those killed in police firing, and a similar compensation was paid to some of the alleged rape victims.

The court had also ordered that those who were injured should be paid a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each and those who were illegally detained by the police, Rs 50,000 each. Among those who received the payment include Union minister, Maj Gen (retd) Bhuvan Chand Khandoori and the present legislator from Dehradun, Harbans Kapoor.

But critics point out that those who should have received some form of assistance from the government have been totally neglected, and that none of the families of those who were either killed or injured were compensated except for the relief that was provided by the court order. Not a single member of these families were given a job, admitted a member of the new state assembly.

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