Uttarakhand: Chief ministers past and present slug it out, BJP vs BJP

An internal strife playing out in the Uttarakhand unit of the has taken many twists and turns, in the process throwing up serious challenges for chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Former Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, now the Lok Sabha MP from , has accused the Dhami government of turning a blind eye to the large-scale in the state.

While there are no definite numbers available on the revenue generated by mining, environmentalists claim the figure is much higher than official estimates concede.

Mining secretary Brajesh Sant countered Rawat and said revenue from mining in Uttarakhand crossed Rs 1,000 crore in 2024–25, up from the earlier figure of Rs 300 crore. This, he added, was a clear indication of how illegal mining had been curbed.

However, Rawat remained undeterred and said in Parliament that overloaded trucks were running at night across , Haridwar, and Udham Singh Nagar districts, resulting in road accidents and damage to infrastructure.

Rawat is known to be close to Union home minister Amit Shah, who is believed to have played a key role in Rawat becoming chief minister in March 2017. Rawat, according to sources in the know, is being instigated by , MP from , who has ambitions of taking over from Dhami in his turn.

Baluni is in charge of the BJP’s national media cell and is considered close to prime minister Narendra Modi and Shah.

Dhami, on the other hand, is being supported by former chief minister B.S. Koshyari, whose own tenure was marked by several scandals before he was finally appointed governor of Maharashtra in 2017.

Following the criticism of Dhami, an old video on alleged corruption in the construction of a barrage, a power station and Suryadhar lake during Rawat’s tenure as chief minister is doing the rounds.

This video was first aired by a channel run by Umesh Kumar, current MLA from Khanpur in Roorkee, who is said to be close to Dhami. The power station on the river Jakhan is in Rawat’s assembly constituency of Doiwala and the video alleged it was constructed to raise the value of a piece of land near the lake owned by Rawat’s wife.

An incensed Rawat then got Umesh Kumar’s channel shut down and even ordered the police to expel him from the state for six months. With ‘friend’ Dhami as chief minister now, Kumar is reported to have cornered several mining contracts in Haridwar.

A senior BJP leader said, “Trivendra’s daughter is studying at Stanford and her fee alone runs into crores annually. Obviously, being an MP from Haridwar, he would have wanted the mining contracts.”

The mining secretary’s attempt to depict a positive picture seemed to cut no ice with Rawat, who retorted, “Sher kutton ka shikar nahin karte (Lions don’t hunt dogs).”

His statement has not gone down well with the Uttarakhand IAS Association, which has criticised this highly remark — Rawat is a Thakur while Sant is from a community.

Realising the need to divert attention, Dhami resorted to his old tactics of Muslim bashing.

In March, he closed down 136 out of the state’s approximately 400 madrasas.

On Eid, he ordered the renaming of 17 places with ‘Muslim-sounding’ names across four districts. in Haridwar has been renamed Shivaji Nagar, Ghaziwali as Arya Nagar, Khanpur as Shri Krishnapur and Khanpur Kursali as Ambedkar Nagar. Likewise, Miyanwala in Dehradun will now be called Ramjiwala, Chandpur Khurd as Prithviraj Nagar, Nawabi Road in Nainital has the new name of Atal Road and Panchukki Marg has been renamed Guru Marg.

The renaming of Miyanwala village near Dehradun has not gone down well with a powerful Rajput clan. They have said the name has nothing to do with the Muslim community. The ‘Miyans’ are a powerful clan in Uttarakhand and and are known for their military valour. They have threatened to launch an agitation.

A senior historian commented that the party leadership should have first studied the history of the state rather than be blinded by their opposition to anything that ‘sounds Muslim’.

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All chief ministers of Uttarakhand, with the possible exception of the late Nityanand Swami and Major General B.C. Khanduri (retd), are known to have both directly and indirectly benefitted from the large-scale mining in the state.

It was rampant during Rawat’s tenure too.

This writer lives on Sahasradhara Road, and for the past 20 years, trucks full of sand and stones have driven past our house throughout the day and night. When this writer complained to the small forest department office located nearby, the ranger replied, “I do not want to die from a bullet in my head.”

The rampant mining created a Joshimath-like situation last year in Bageshwar district, where cracks appeared in homes, offices, roads, fields and even in the 1,000-year old Kalika temple.

A PWD study over a five-year period highlighted how over 37 bridges have collapsed in the state with another 27 on the brink of collapse.

S.P. Sati, a leading geologist with the HNB Garhwal University, is very critical of the present situation. He pointed out, “Illegal sand mining exposes the pillars of these bridges, leaving them more vulnerable. With water flowing at a much greater speed due to excess muck being dumped in our rivers, it has created a situation where bridges are collapsing like a pack of cards.”

Despite unanimity in the scientific community about the dangers of mining, it was shocking to learn that the Wildlife Institute of India, in close collaboration with the National Board for Wildlife has prepared ‘a holistic plan for a 10-km radius landscape area around towards… ensuring sustainable river bed material mining practices’.

This same practice will be extended across the as well.

Dehradun-based environmentalist Reenu Paul is horrified at this state of affairs. “What does the phrase ‘regulated mining’ mean, given that today giant stone crushers and excavators are seen operating across several rivers in our state? This is in blatant violation of the orders of the Uttarakhand High Court.”

“These specialised agencies have been set up to protect our wildlife and our forests. Instead, we find they are facilitating mining in our reserved forests,” she said.

The Supreme Court had in 2022 ordered that a 1 km stretch around protected forests and parks should be declared an eco-sensitive zone to ensure no illegal mining or construction takes place.

Sadly, the Union ministry of environment and forests has failed to notify these ESZs as being inviolate.