Shishir Prashant: Gairsain - To be or not to be permanent capital

With Assembly polls only a year away, the Congress and the BJP are both blowing hot and cold over the state capital issue

Ask any activist of the statehood movement of the 1990s which place should be the capital of Uttarakhand - instead of Dehradun, the interim capital - and pat comes the reply, Gairsain, a nondescript town in the Garhwal region.

Ever since Uttarakhand was carved out as a state on November 9, 2000, Gairsain remains an emotive issue. Now that Assembly elections in the state are just a year away, the issue is being politicised to the hilt. Gairsain has become a hot potato for the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alike.

When Vijay Bahuguna became chief minister in 2012, he laid the foundation stone to construct a Vidhan Sabha in Gairsain, clearly indicating that it would become the capital of the state. The construction of the Vidhan Sabha is expected to be over by June 30.

After Bahuguna's exit, there was a slight shift in the state government's stand. Till 2014, Gairsain, located midway between the Garhwal and Kumaon regions, was being developed as the summer capital. Chief Minister Harish Rawat made several statements supporting this move.

Last year, the ruling Congress made a clarion call to declare Gairsain the permanent capital. This demand, the party hoped, would work wonders for it in the run-up to the Assembly elections. To this effect, the party held a state-level convention in Gairsain in November.

Then, state Finance Minister Indira Hridayesh said it was not feasible to declare Gairsain the permanent capital as it lacked infrastructural facilities. Supporting Hridayesh was Agriculture Minister Harak Singh Rawat. Buckling under pressure from his Cabinet ministers, Chief Minister Harish Rawat put the issue on the back burner. "When the time is ripe, all political parties will sit together and build consensus on declaring Gairsain the permanent capital of Uttarakhand," Rawat told the convention. This means the state will have to wait till the Assembly elections to see if Gairsain can be made the permanent capital.

For the time being, the BJP is keeping its cards close to its chest. The main Opposition in the state has dared the chief minister to take a firm decision on the issue. "The Congress is just playing politics on Gairsain. It should make its stand clear," said state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt.

The Congress is also non-committal. "The BJP should be held responsible for all the political uproar on Gairsain," state Congress chief Kishore Upadhayay said. "When our state was being formed, the BJP was at the Centre; it should have solved the issue of permanent capital at that time. As far as Gairsain is concerned, we have to develop infrastructural facilities there for which we need a package of Rs 10,000 crore. If the BJP brings this package from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we will immediately declare Gairsain the permanent capital."

And so the war of words between the BJP and the Congress on Gairsain continues.

Since 2014, several Vidhan Sabha sessions have been held in tents in Gairsain. The first such session was held on June 9, 2014. The chief minister described these sessions as "historic" and claimed that these would usher in a new era of development in the state's remote hilly areas. "We want to fulfil the dreams of our statehood activists," said Harish Rawat. But he would not spell out a time frame for declaring Gairsain the permanent capital.

Ever since Dehradun was made the interim capital, the clamour for permanent capital status to Gairsain, located in Chamoli district, has never died down.

Successive state governments never seemed to be serious about resolving the issue of permanent capital and did not consider the report of the V N Dixit Commission, which was set up to end the imbroglio. The commission looked at five choices - Dehradun, Gairsain, Rishikesh, Kashipur and Ramnagar - to determine the feasibility of each as state capital along parameters such as geographical condition, population, accessibility, transport system, seismic condition and security. The commission submitted its 250-page report in 2008 to the then BJP government in the state. Since then, no action has been taken on the report, which suggested that Dehradun be made permanent capital and not Gairsain because of seismic factors.

Meanwhile, the plan to construct a new Vidhan Sabha in Raipur area of Dehradun has been on for a long time. But the government has not identified any land for this, mainly because of the Gairsain issue. The government believes the present Vidhan Sabha building in Dehradun has little space and causes traffic snarls in the city during the Assembly sessions. The building is also considered to be unsafe.

"Right now, we are focusing on Gairsain," Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal said. "We have set June 30 as the deadline for the construction of the new Vidhan Sabha building. Since the building is coming up in Gairsain, it should be made the new capital." Kunjwal is considered to be close to the chief minister. The new building is being built at a cost of Rs 106 crore. A separate mini-secretariat building is also being constructed in Gairsain.

It will be interesting to see how the Congress and the BJP exploit the issue in the run-up to the Assembly elections.