(Tribune)
The sheen is off the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which has not completed even a month in office. The decisions taken by the state government left even die-hard supporters of the ruling saffron party aghast. The two decisions of the state government which were prompted by the court decisions left the people dismayed.
In the first decision, the state government went against the Nainital High Court decision to ban mining in the riverbeds for four months to the Supreme Court and stayed the High Court orders. The mining in the entire state had been a controversial issue with environmentalists and even Hindu religious leaders opposing it on various grounds while the politicians in collusion with the bureaucrats had been making a lot of money through mining and even through getting it done illegally.
