DEHRA DUN: A general feeling of despair among the masses in the Garhwal region due to lack of adequate development works over the past four years of Congress rule has sent the party MLAs into a panic.

"If Chief Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari does not order rapid development works in Garhwal, we are most likely to draw a near blank next year from an area that gave a large number of MLAs in the last elections," said an exasperated former Minister and MLA from Tehri, Kishore Upadhyay.

Another former Minister and MLA from Rishikesh, Shurveer Singh Sajwan, minces no words in accusing his party leadership of showing a definite soft corner for Kumaon region which gave fewer MLAs. "All the major development activities are confined to Kumaon districts and the Capital, Dehra Dun, because the Chief Minister, the Vidhan Sabha Speaker and the State Congress president are all from Kumaon," he said.

Several Congress leaders of Garhwal are angry with the Chief Minister for not touring the region. "Mr Tiwari has not even visited Tehri that is drowning due to the dam or tried to assure the local population of justice," they said.

Several MLAs want Congress president Sonia Gandhi to order an independent survey to find out how much development activity took place in each constituency. "We are sure that after such a survey, Ms. Gandhi would order crisis management efforts in the form of development projects for the neglected areas before it is too late," said Mahendra Bisht, a senior party worker in Rudraprayag.

He also wanted the Government to arrange electricity in the large number of educational institutions where computers were provided under much fanfare but were gathering dust in the absence of power to operate them.

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