Rasheed Kidwai’s book ‘Leaders, Politicians, Citizens’ launched
By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 22 May: Veteran Congress leader Harish Rawat today said that Uttarakhand ought to have settled two issues at the time of formation of the new state itself. One related to the state capital and the other was choosing the direction it had to take to take the state ahead.
Rawat was speaking on the occasion of book launch of author and journalist Rasheed Kidwai’s book ‘Leaders, Politicians, Citizens’ which profiles and analyses the influence of fifty leaders who influenced Indian politics but are not living anymore. It may be recalled that Rasheed Kidwai has also written a biography of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The function was organised by leading author Advaita Kala and her new initiative The Big Tent. The trio along with PTI Bhasha Editor Nirmal Pathak also held a discussion on the future of Uttarakhand on this occasion.
Speaking about the book, Harish Rawat said that knowing Kidwai, he was aware of the fact that Kidwai had probably profiled more Congress leaders than from any other party and had done a factual critical analysis of their contribution. He added that though criticism was welcome, it ought to be based on facts and not just one sided blind criticism.
During the interactive session, Rawat said that he considered it proper to accept defeat in the elections but as a leader from the Opposition Party, he would still believe in criticise, depose the ruling party if any opportunity came around and then propose formation of the government and that there was nothing wrong with that. He also claimed that manipulation of EVMs in the election could still not be ruled out since some of the seats where even the BJP did think it would win were won by the ruling party. He however added that he was not making any allegation but there was always a possibility of manipulation of technology and hence no developed country preferred EVMs. Nirmal Pathak asked several questions to Rawat on the past, present and future of Uttarakhand while Kidwai asked Rawat if the Congress party really indulged in serious discussion during its Chintan Shivir in Udaipur. Rawat said that Uttarakhand ought to focus on its traditional crafts and that hopefully Congress would emerge more powerful from the Camp in Udaipur.
