BJP leader compares Harish Rawat to Lalu Prasad Yadav, accuses him of 'non-serious politics'

Dehradun: Accusing Harish Rawat of emotionally exploiting people of Uttarakhand by often talking about things close to their heart and doing nothing for their development, the BJP on Sunday said the Chief Minister is doing Lalu Prasad’s kind of “non-serious politics”. [caption id=“attachment_2968412” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat. PTI[/caption] “Utttarakhand is known for serious politics. Stopping at a betel shop for a pan, at a shabby tea kiosk for tea or along a busy city road to have a roasted corncob, this is nothing but nautanki of the kind pioneered in Indian politics by former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad whose cult Rawat seems to be following,” Pradesh BJP spokesman Munna Singh Chauhan said. Terming Rawat’s renewed emphasis on celebration of traditional festivals like Harela, Ghee Sankrand and all the hype around it as “fake”, he said all that is meant to emotionally exploit people who are sentimental about their traditional festivals. Accusing Rawat of doing nothing on the ground which could lead to real change in the lives of people, he said the health system has collapsed totally. “Pregnant women are dying due to non-availability of proper medical care. I have heard of at least six such deaths recently. One boy died of snake bite at a Haldwani hospital and another in Uttarkashi recently due to non-availability of anti-venom vaccine,” Chauhan said. Medical equipment worth several hundred crores were bought at the hospitals in Dehradun but most of them are either lying unutilised or out of order, he alleged. “A man died at Doon Medical College here as he could not be put on dialysis due to unavailability of filtered water,” the BJP leader said. He claimed that the Kalsi Chakrata road which is just one-and-a-half-hour drive from the state capital is blocked by debris from landslides for a month, indicating where things stood in terms of development in the state.