Govt gives in to protests in new district

Divisional Commissioner of Moradabad Surendra Kumar Verma said the headquarter will be located somewhere on the Pawasa-Bahjoi road. For now,the DM and SP will function from Bahjoi until the new headquarter is developed,he added. Verma said the orders in this regard have been received from the government.

Consisting of Sambhal and Chandausi tehsils of Moradabad district and Gunnaur tehsil of Badaun district,Bhimnagar was one of the three new districts Chief Minister Mayawati announced during her visit of western UP on Wednesday. The other two new districts were Prabuddhanagar comprising Muzaffarnagar’s Shamli and Kairana tehsils,and Panchsheel Nagar consisting of Ghaziabad’s Hapur,Garhmukteshwar and Dhaulana tehsils.

The administration has not been able to decide the exact place for Bhimnagar district headquarters. Joint Magistrate (JM) of Sambhal Anuj Jha said he will visit Pawasa to survey the 10 km road where district headquarters would be located.

The protests in Sambhal ended after local BSP MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq assured people that the district headquarter will be located in Pawasa town of Sambhal tehsil. “The traffic on Chandausi chauraha has started,” said Jha. Chandausi roundabout,the main route for traffic,was blocked by the protesters since Friday morning.

However,a group of protestors led by Bar association of Sambhal continued their protest demanding the SP and DM office function from Sambhal till the infrastructure gets developed in Pawasa. “We will not give up our protest until the DM and SP come here to function from here till the offices are built in Pawasa,” said Sudhir Kumar Sharma,president of Bar association of munsif and tehsil court of Sambhal.

BSP MP Barq said the people who are protesting at tehsil are from the BJP and other political parties.

According to a protester in Sambhal,MP Barq and BSP MLA Aqeelur Rahman are trying to get the district headquarter in Sambhal tehsil while Girish Chandra,BSP MLA from Chandausi,is trying to get it in his constituency.

After delimitation,Bahjoi is now part of Chandausi assembly constituency where Girish Chandra is the BSP candidate while Pawasa falls in the newly made Usmauli constituency from where Aqeelur Rahman is the BSP candidate. Aqeelur Rahman is sitting MLA from Bahjoi assembly constituency which has been abolished after delimitation.

When contacted,Girish Chandra said the government had decided to make the headquarters in Bahjoi as it is centrally located. “Everything has been decided by the government,I have no role in that,” he said. Meanwhile,Aqeelur Rahman said Pawasa will be near from both Chandausi and Sambhal but he said the decision has been the government.

Sambhal was considered to be Samajwadi Party stronghold until BSP made inroads there in the last Lok Sabha election and Barq defeated SP’s Iqbal Mehmood.