Flip-flop over permission granted to BJP to hold rally in Dharamsala today

The Kangra administration’s flip flop over permission to BJP for organising its ‘Jan Akrosh’ rally at Zorawar stadium in Dharamsala has generated political heat in the region.

Sources said that BJP initially had moved an application before the SDM, Dharamsala, on December 10 to hold a political rally in the Zorawar Singh Stadium in Dharamsala on December 18. The SDM granted the permission. However, yesterday, the SDM cancelled the permission on the plea that the Zorawar Singh stadium was on the way to the Himachal Assembly complex in the Tapovan area of Dharamsala and the winter session was scheduled to start there.

Besides, the reason given for cancelling the permission for the rally in the Zorawar Singh Stadium was that as per the police report about 15,000 people were expected to participate in the rally and the stadium was not big enough to accommodate such a large gathering.

The BJP leaders then looked for a private land on way to Assembly session to organize their rally. They made arrangement for holding the rally on a private ground. The sources said that the private land was not enough and the crowd would have spilled on to the roads which would be have hampered traffic to the Vidhan Sabha complex.

The sources said that after the intervention of Leader of the Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, the permission was granted again to the BJP to hold the rally in the Zorawar Stadium.

Thakur told The Tribune that it was unfortunate that the administration had withheld the permission to BJP, the main opposition party of the state, to hold a political rally.

“When I reached Dharamsala on Monday, party workers informed me that the permission to hold a rally in the Zorawar Singh stadium had been cancelled. The Zorawar Singh stadium is the biggest open space in Dharamsala and is generally used by political parties for holding rallies. I talked to Kangra administration officials and they expressed apprehension that thousands of BJP workers may march towards the Assembly during the session due to which the permission was cancelled. I assured the administration officials that nothing of this sort would happen and they gave permission to hold the rally.”