By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
DEHRADUN, 22 Oct: Former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader, Harish Rawat, continued with his dharna in Haridwar today also. He is sitting on dharna within the Bahadarabad police station premises. He slept at the dharna point on Friday night and woke up this morning just at the entrance of the Police Station and performed Yoga and Congress workers were more than eager to oblige him by clicking his videos and pics and posting them on social media.
Rawat is ostensibly on the dharna against alleged harassment of Congress party workers by the Police by slapping cases against them. As soon as the pictures and videos of Rawat waking up at the Police Station and performing Yoga were posted on the social media, they became viral. Harish Rawat was accompanied by his MLA daughter, Anupama Rawat at the Police Station this morning when the pictures were clicked.
Rawat and his daughter Anupama Rawat are demanding withdrawal of cases filed by the Police against Congress workers. The dharna has been organised under the leadership of Congress MLA from Haridwar Rural, Anupama Rawat. Leader of the Opposition Yashpal Arya too reached the Bahadarabad Police Station to lend support to the dharna. Today was the second day of the Dharna.
Speaking to the media persons, Harish Rawat claimed that he would not go back from the Dharna empty handed. He asserted that either the Police would have to withdraw cases filed against the Congress workers or he was willing to sacrifice his life in pursuance of his demand.
Rawat in a tweet posted today, claimed that on one hand, the Police was not taking any action against the criminals who have become very active in the state and have spoilt the law and order situation in the state and on the other was filing fake cases. The image of Uttarakhand Police has been dented to an extent where it is being made fun of by the people. He also said that he would like to see if Chief Minister Dhami could rise above party politics and take cognisance of the incidents here and take appropriate action in this respect or would remain tied up to party politics.
It may be recalled that on Thursday, Haridwar Rural MLA Anupama Rawat, Jwalapur MLA Ravi Bahadur and Bhagwanpur MLA Mamta Rakesh had started a dharna outside Bahadarabad police station along with Congress workers. The MLAs alleged that during the counting of panchayat votes, Congress workers were being harassed by registering of “fake cases” against them. They have demanded quashing of the cases registered against them. Yesterday, the Congress workers reached the police station premises with buffalo cart and bullock and parked the cart outside the Police Station for the whole day.
Conress MLA Furkan Ahmad claimed that many of the Congress and other party leaders and workers in district Haridwar have been forced by the administration to join the BJP. He said he was aware of many such workers who are not willing to switch over to BJP but have been intimidated and forced to do so.
