Uttarakhand

officials at Bharadisain village in Gairsain block.

At the site, large portions of a hill have been flattened. But there’s still a long way to go, as was evident when Rawat held an Assembly session for one-and-a-half days last November.

At the time, the walls of the under-constructed building were yet to be plastered, and carpets were spread out to cover the lack of flooring. Two months later, little has changed.

“It’s all a drama in the name of the capital. They came for a picnic and returned,” says Virendra Rawat, a local resident. “What is the point of having an Assembly building? A capital needs to have all amenities. This has nothing. This Assembly is a joke on us,” he says.

Gairsain is located at the border of the Garhwal and Kumaon hills, and is a nearly 250-km, seven-hour drive from Dehradun. It is part of a district, which boasts of Badrinath and the Valley of Flowers as major tourist attractions.

And yet, residents allege, Gairsain has been neglected by the political class in favour of the real estate opportunities available in the plains of Dehradun and Hardwar.

“We did not get anything from this Vidhan Sabha project. Even the labourers were hired from outside,” says Puran Singh Negi, a shopkeeper in Diwalikhal, the nearest settlement, 5 km away.