'One can't get anything done in Uttarakhand without paying commission': Former CM Tirath Singh Rawat

Dehradun: A purported video of former Uttarakhand chief minister Tirath Singh Rawat saying no work could be done in the state without paying a commission has surfaced online. The undated video purportedly shows the BJP leader seated in a room and lamenting about "commissionkhori" in the state.

"Though I have been a chief minister and perhaps shouldn't say this, I have no hesitation in admitting that when we were separated from Uttar Pradesh, up to 20 per cent commission used to be paid there to get public works done.

"After separation, it should have come to nil here but the practice continued and we began with 20 per cent," Rawat is heard saying.

The hill state was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000.

"I am told that one cannot get anything done here (Uttarakhand) without paying a certain percentage as commission," said the BJP MP from Pauri.

"Commissionkhori was a practice prevalent in Uttar Pradesh and unfortunately, it continues in Uttarakhand," he said.

Rawat, however, said no one, in particular, can be held responsible. "It is a mentality. It will go away only when we begin to look upon our state as our own family."

The BJP is in power in Uttarakhand as well as Uttar Pradesh.

The former chief minister is no stranger to controversies.

In March last year, Rawat had said youngsters follow strange fashion trends due to a lack of values and consider themselves to be big shots after wearing jeans ripped at the knees and women, too, follow such trends.

He had then gone on to describe the attire of a woman who sat next to him on a flight. He described her as wearing boots, jeans ripped at the knees, bangles in her hands and with two children travelling with her. He had said the woman runs an NGO, goes out in society and wondered what values she would give her children.

Within a few days, he had courted another controversy, saying "the US enslaved India for 200 years".