Uttarakhand: Scandals tumbling out of the Dhami closet

When Pushkar Singh Dhami was sworn in as chief minister of Uttarakhand, he vowed to make the state corruption-free. Instead, he has walked the state in the opposite direction, with scandals becoming as routine as landslides during this season.

The latest is former minister Harak Singh Rawat’s allegation that during his tenure as forest minister in the state’s BJP-led government, he contributed more than a crore to the Rs 30 crore fixed deposit corpus established to finance the party’s organisational activities.

According to Rawat, this money had been collected from the mining mafia ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, during Dhami’s earlier term as chief minister.

Mining permits, Rawat said, were awarded in haste, overlooking all norms. “It’s similar to the Rishikesh land scam that took place when Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ was the chief minister. He sent a letter for land allocation to the Haridwar Development Authority (HDA). HDA promptly prepared a report, following which land was allotted the very same day.”

BJP leaders in Uttarakhand have dismissed Rawat’s allegations as baseless, claiming he raised them only because he is facing an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe. They allege this is a delayed attempt to revive his faltering political career — Rawat had resigned from the BJP and joined the Congress prior to the 2023 Assembly elections.

Meanwhile, Dhami is being openly criticised by two former BJP chief ministers, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirath Singh Rawat, for his handling of the Dharali–Harsil disaster. Right through the spate of catastrophes that hit the state in August, Dhami has been completely isolated.

Five days after the tragedy at Dharali, villagers came out in protest against the measly Rs 5,000 handed out as compensation. For the first time in years, anti-Modi slogans echoed in the valley with villagers shouting ‘Modiji ghaam tapo (a reference to Modi selling Uttarakhand as a winter destination, ideal for sunbathing)' and ‘kendra sarkar murdabad’.

The growing anti-BJP sentiment saw a bevy of state ministers trooping to New Delhi to meet Modi and Amit Shah to air their grievances against Dhami’s authoritarian style of functioning.

Realising that he was in deep trouble, Dhami finally decided to expand his cabinet. The Uttarakhand cabinet has 12 ministerial positions, but Dhami had kept five positions vacant. Of his seven ministers, Ganesh Joshi, minister of agriculture and rural welfare, faces a vigilance case for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets. Although the Uttarakhand High Court has ordered the cabinet to take action again him, nothing has been done, and the matter has once again been referred to the high court.

That’s not the only scandal Dhami is embroiled in. On 21 August, 33-year-old Jitendra Singh shot himself. In his suicide note and pre-recorded video, Singh held BJP leader Himanshu Chamoli responsible for his death, accusing Chamoli of taking Rs 35 lakh to approve a plot of land— and then neither delivering on his promise nor returning the money.

Known as Dhami’s right-hand man who ‘oversaw’ multiple land deals and collected money claiming to be the chief minister’s OSD (officer on special duty), Chamoli has since been arrested and an investigation initiated against him. Meanwhile, the CM’s office has denied the charge that Chamoli was an OSD in their office.

Another horrific incident emerged in June, the repercussions of which are yet to die down. Anamika Sharma, a 37-year-old BJP leader, forced her 13-year-old daughter to drink alcohol and allowed her boyfriend Sumeet Patwal and his aide to rape her, allegedly telling her daughter that “this was normal”.

Police officer Kamal Singh Bhandari told the media, “The minor was gang-raped eight times, each time in her mother’s presence. The first such incident took place inside a car in January. The abuse continued till March, at various locations, including hotels in Agra and Vrindavan. She was also assaulted in a hotel in Haridwar that was leased in the name of Anamika Sharma and Sumeet Patwal.”

It was in June that the minor finally disclosed her ordeal to her father, who then reported the matter to the police.

Following the failure of the police to nail the killers of receptionist Ankita Bhandari, the Congress has condemned this latest incident as a glaring example of the moral turpitude of BJP leaders.

Police inaction was also evident when five Congress candidates were kidnapped during the recent panchayat elections. Videos submitted with the petition to the Uttarakhand High Court showed sword-wielding criminals loitering near a polling booth on election day, before forcibly dragging the five zilla panchayat members away.

A two-member bench of Uttarakhand High Court Chief Justice G. Narendar and Justice Alok Mehra ordered the transfer of senior superintendent of police P.N. Meena for failing to prevent the kidnapping. But, as has become routine practice in the state, the five Congress zilla panchayat members later denied being kidnapped, prompting one of the judges to remark that their statements weren’t worth even a penny.

With so many scandals in his administration, Dhami still doesn’t face any real heat from the Opposition. The state Congress is comatose, and the party hasn’t even been able to appoint a state unit president.

Rotten at the roots

Meanwhile, a major controversy has erupted within the Uttarakhand Forest Department after Magsaysay Award-winning IFS (Indian Forest Service) officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi revealed that 7,375 boundary pillars have vanished from the Mussoorie Forest Division.

Chaturvedi, currently serving in Haldwani as chief conservator of forests (planning), had taken the courageous step of writing a scathing letter to principal chief conservator of forests Sameer Sinha, demanding the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the widespread encroachment on forest land, particularly in Mussoorie’s Raipur Range.

He also accused divisional forest officer (DFO) Amit Kanwar and local officials and staff of long-term collusion enabling illegal occupation.

‘These illegal occupations have persisted for years due to the connivance of local officers and employees,’ he wrote, warning that if swift action is not taken, ‘the remaining forest area of Mussoorie Forest Division will also fall into the hands of encroachers’.

Amit Kanwar defended himself, stating, “The pillars in question belong to the entire division, which spans two districts — Tehri and Dehradun — across six ranges and 33 beats. This issue came to light in a recent survey, and the data spans several years. An FIR will also be registered soon.”

Chaturvedi’s letter blasts the system, and demands answers to the question of how officers who stand accused of corruption and acquisition of illegal assets keep getting awarded ‘Integrity Certificates’ and graded as ‘outstanding performers’.

Artificial lake, really?

Heavy rainfall, recurring avalanches and waves of debris have resulted in the formation of two lakes this August. One on the Bhagirathi river near the Army camp at Harsil, stretching three kilometres; the second a 350 metre (~1,200 ft) long, 20 ft deep lake in Syanachatti on the Yamuna.

Despite this, the Uttarakhand government seems to be in denial. In a state battered by manmade disasters and inundated by overflowing lakes and rivers, it is shocking that tourism minster Satpal Maharaj is pushing to develop an artificial lake on the Nyar river near Satpuli in Pauri to attract tourists.

Instead of addressing the urgent need to manage existing water resources, the government is busy pouring funds into vanity projects, squandering the finances of an already bankrupt state.