The boxes of ladoos, the congratulatory phone calls, and the streams of people have been unending at Pushkar Singh Dhami’s Garhi Cantt residence in Dehradun. The Uttarakhand chief minister successfully piloted the Uniform Civil Code Bill with not a single negative vote in the assembly. As supporters thronged to congratulate him for achieving the Bharatiya Janata Party’s long-pending agenda, CNN-News18 caught up with the CM for an exclusive conversation. Edited excerpts:
As the captain of the ship, how do you feel being a witness to history?
This is a moment of pride. Uttarakhand got the good fortune of initiating it. Just like how the Ganga originates from our state and works to provide water and life to the entire country, in the same manner, this vision was placed before the people of Uttarakhand under the leadership of the Prime Minister during the election of our legislative assembly. This was our promise, this was our dream. Our dream has come true. This is a very big day for us. It is the day to make a testimony to history. I would like to express my gratitude to the people of Uttarakhand. They gave us their mandate on our ‘sankalp’ during the elections and gave us an opportunity to serve them.
This is being called a political stunt by opposition leaders.
The promise we had made to the people of Uttarakhand, we are just fulfilling it. I mean, we have got the mandate of the people because we had said that if we come to power, the first thing to be done would be implementing UCC. In the first cabinet meeting of the new government, we decided to form a committee for UCC. The committee worked hard for 20 months. It surveyed around 2 lakh people. One-on-one interactions took place in a total of 43 locations. Thousands of people responded through the internet. The bill came up after all this.
It seemed like polygamy and halal would be the centre of controversy but right now live-in provisions are drawing maximum flak.
We had carefully thought over it. We want our youth, our kids protected. Their protection was kept in mind when we drafted UCC so they don’t get abused or exploited. All these aspects were thought of. The people will soon realise it’s (provisions) for their own good.
Are you open to reviewing the rules based on feedback?
It is a continuous process. We have just initiated it and are open to amending it in the future if need be.
BJP-ruled states seem excited about it. The Assam chief minister has said he’ll see it. Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh too…
We expect that other states will implement this as well after listening to what their residents want.
But your state has only a 3% tribal population; other states have more. Will it not be difficult to implement this there?
Tribals are protected under many other provisions of the Constitution. Hence, we didn’t take any action. But other states can do it after studying their demography.
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