Menace of "Red lights" grips Uttarakhand

UTTARAKHAND ELECTIONS

Amitabh Shukla

Dehradun, February 4

The flashing red lights have become the latest menace for the people of the hill-state and an election issue for the second assembly elections of Uttarakand.

In the last five years, the Congress government gave the minister of state status to more than 150 politicians in the city who move around with beacon fitted light, terrorising the citizens of not only the Capital Dehradun but also the hills. They are in-charge of flimsy corporations or members of some Board, which has no actual powers but merely ceremonial role.

"They flaunt their status, waste the resources of the state and terrorise the people due to their behavior on the road and pulling their weight in the functioning of the state government," said former BJP chief miniter Bhagat Singh Koshiyary. He told Hindustan Times that it has already become an election issue.

Congress Spokesman Surendra Kumar dubs it as a non-issue. "People of the state are more concerned about development rather than such flimsy issues," he said.

Congress leaders admit that accomodating and recognising politicians as VIPs and giving them the visual posessions of power like the revolving red light was a compulsion of the government. "These are locally important leaders who have a considerable say in electoral politics," said a Congress leader on condition of anonymity.

Not surprisingly, almost a dozen of these "VIPs" rebelled against the Congress for denial of tickets to them. "We already have 39 sitting MLAs (including independents who joined Congress). They had to get the tickets due to the sitting-getting formula. In the rest of the 31 seats, how could have we accommodated 150 odd such VIPs," said the leader.

These VIP rebels are the latest headache for the poll managers of the party and expected to eat into the votes of the Congress. (2007)