- Gadkari’s comments reflect his thinking: Rawat

By our staff reporter
Ramnagar, 12 July: Commenting on the ‘unparliamentary’ statements of BJP President Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of State for Labour & Employment Harish Rawat said at a press conference here, today, that BJP leaders were violating the norms of political civility.
He said that the choice of words reflected Gadkari’s thought process.
On the question of renewing the Industrial Package for Uttarakhand and the charges of step-brotherly treatment of the state, Rawat said the writ filed by the Punjab Government in the Supreme Court on this issue had made it impossible to do so.
Targeting the State Government, he said that the industrial package was extant in Uttarakhand from 2007 to 2010, but the BJP would be hard put to show how much industry was established in the state. He claimed that when the Centre initiated discussions on extending the package to 2013, the state government raised the demand that it run till 2020, thereby scuttling the chance of any decision altogether.
Rawat alleged that the Centre had allocated an extra Rs 1800 crores to the state, which put paid to any allegation that Uttarakhand was receiving step-brotherly treatment.
In fact, false claims were being made on the AIIMS, NIT, IIM and other Central projects by the state government.
Recalling that the BJP had made allegations of 56 scams against the previous Congress Government, Rawat said that the present Chief Minister brushed off corruption allegations, claiming these were routinely made. This proved that the BJP’s election manifesto was fiction, he emphasised.
Present on the occasion were City President Haji Abdul Hakim, YS District President Sanjay Negi, Congress leaders Pushkar Durgapal, Anand Ballabh Pandey and other activists.