JUNE 27- On June 19, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi came to Uttarakhand to aerially survey the flood-affected zones, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna accompanied them back to Delhi and spent the night in the national capital instead of his state.
At a time when relief and rescue work had just started, Bahuguna’s absence from the state when he was needed there the most drew flak from all sides.
But Minister of State for Home Affairs R.P.N. Singh tried to undermine Bahuguna’s stay in Delhi.
“He has come here to seek Centre’s assistance and after the needful has been done, he’ll go back to his state,” Singh said.
Switzerland trip plan
But the issue was something else. Apparently, Bahuguna was supposed to fly to Switzerland on June 24 on an official tour with his wife and some officers. His office had sought clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs for the trip.
Once the calamity hit the state, the ministry expected that chief minister’s office would ask it to cancel the trip. But no communication reached to ministry till June 18. Hence it gave a go-ahead for the trip.
The trip was finally cancelled the next day when Bahuguna was in New Delhi but by that time, the damage had been done.
Slow response to tragedy
The Congress party too criticised Bahuguna and his government for their response to the unfolding calamity.
“The government always tried to undermine the impact of the calamity. The inordinate delay in rescue operations has sullied the party’s image in Uttarakhand and outside,” said a union minister, who did not want to be named.
The rescue operation may be getting over, but the crisis for Bahuguna is not over yet.
While the Congress is trying to do everything to project an image of a caring government, Bahuguna’s fate as chief minister is uncertain.
“Right now, the focus is on saving lives. Later, responsibility will be fixed,” said a Congress general secretary, not wanting to be name either.
Ignoring weather warning
The meteorological department had issued a warning about heavy rains in the state on June 13.
But Bahuguna later said it was a general warning.
“There was no specific warning of a cloudburst, that too has to be area-specific,” he said. “We did stop all flights the government was operating. But how can anyone control the movement of one lakh tourists who were already there and the local population whose livelihood depended on Char Dham Yatra?”
But on the evening June 15, after the rains began, a cabinet meeting was held in Dehradun.
“In the meeting, there were no mentions of the rainfall or the Met department warning,” said a minister on conditions of anonymity.
No early help sought from Army and ITBP
There was no advance planning such as stopping people in Rishikesh from going further up once the rains started.
The devastation took place on June 16 and 17 and it was only then the state government took action. But that too was restricted to state officials.
The Army and the ITBP were stationed in Uttarakhand but no help was sought from them, said an MLA.
On the evening of June 17, Harish Rawat, the Union Minister for Water Resources, who is from Uttarakhand, spoke to Defence Minister A.K. Antony.
Subsequently, the army and other forces were roped in for the rescue operation. It took two days for the state to set up a helpline centre in Dehradun and it began functioning from June 19.
High Command unhappy
Sources in the Congress say that high command was not satisfied with the way Bahuguna handled the crisis.
On June 22, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde visited Uttarakand. Apart from monitoring the rescue work, he was asked to gauge the mood of party workers and leaders in the state.
Shinde came back the same day and reportedly informed Congress president Sonia Gandhi about the sorry state of affairs.
On June 23, Congress treasurer Motilal Vora and general secretary in-charge of Uttarakhand Ambika Soni visited Uttarakhand to talk to party workers and urge them to help in rescue work.
“We have conveyed our thoughts to the leaders and have requested them to take action,” said a minister.
“Bahuguna must go. Otherwise, we’ll lose all five Lok Sabha seats in the elections.”
When Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi planned to visit Uttarakhand, the state government was not kept in the loop — a sign, party leaders, of the growing opposition towards Bahuguna.
Insider trouble
It is not the first time Bahuguna is facing opposition. In March last year, the Congress won a paper-thin majority (32 of the 70 seats) in the assembly polls and formed a government with the support of independents and other parties.
That time, Rawat was supposed to be the chief minister since he enjoyed the support of most MLAs.
But the high command decided in favour of Bahuguna, an MP from Tehri, who was nowhere in the race.
Since then, Congress leaders in the state have been divided between the Bahuguna and the Rawat camp.
The biggest setback for Bahuguna was when he fielded his son, Sanket Bahuguna, in the Tehri by-polls. But he lost to BJP’s Rajya Lakshmi Devi in October last year. It was said that the Rawat camp had ensured Sanket’s defeat.
In January, the state government announced creation of three municipal corporations — Rudrapur, Kashipur and Roorkee — taking a total number of civic bodies to six.
Initially, only Dehradun had a municipal corporation. But the previous BJP government created corporations in Haridwar and Haldwani too.
The Congress’ idea was to mobilise voters and workers in the three new civic bodies.
On March 8, Rahul Gandhi visited Dehradun and told party workers to use the urban local body polls to strengthen district, city and ward units. But the Congress lost all the corporations to the control to BJP in the April polls.
Also, just before the calamity struck, six Congress MLAs had blamed Bahuguna for ignoring their constituencies since they were close to Rawat.
Bahuguna then invited the legislators for a meeting on June 10 but they boycotted it and went to instead meet Planning Minister Dinesh Agarwal, another Rawat loyalist.
“The CM had promised an inter-state bus terminus in my constituency,” said Almora MLA Manoj Tewari. “I have requested him several times but he has given no concrete answers.”
Matter worsened with state Congress spokesman Dhirendra Pratap demanding the resignation from the rebel MLAs. Pratap said the leaders are not cooperating with the chief minister.
In response, Rawat said: “The MLAs should not attach much importance to what Pratap is saying and continue raising issues of development in their constituencies as they are finally accountable to the people.”
While all this intrigue was going on, the natural disaster struck and the party’s focus for the time being shifted to the crisis.
Narendra Bhandari, the state Congress discipline committee head, has sought a meeting with Sonia Gandhi.
Once the attention from the human tragedy shifts, a change of guard in Uttarakhand will be discussed at the top level. This time, Bahuguna doesn’t have an upper hand.
INDIA TODAY
