9 rebel MLAs join BJP after Uttarakhand fiasco
NEW DELHI: : After criticising Vijay Bahuguna every day of his two-year stint as the chief minister of Uttarakhand, the BJP today inducted him into the party fold along with eight other rebels expelled by Congress.
Mr Bahuguna had stepped down from the chief minister’s post in January 2014, eventually rebelling against Harish Rawat, who is back as the Chief Minister in the state.
Barring the party’s general secretary in-charge of the state Shyam Jaju, no senior BJP leader was present at the induction, which was held in Delhi. Alok Bhatt, the state unit chief of the BJP, said, “These leaders sacrificed their membership of the assembly and have joined the BJP without conditions”.
In his address, Mr Bahuguna said, “For two years, we kept trying to alert Congress central leaders about resentment in state unit. We hope the voters will now see we didn’t act for lure of power or money. We are with Mr Modi, who is a pragmatic and inspiring leader.”
The clearance for the induction came during a meeting of the BJP state unit leaders with party chief Amit Shah. A go ahead was given for the induction of the 9 rebels, and Rekha Arya of Congress, who had voted for the BJP during the trust vote. BJP sources said Ms Arya, who is currently attending the Kumbh mela in Allahabad, will be joining later.
ॉarak Singh Rawat, had been disqualified by the Uttarakhand assembly speaker in March after they revolted against Harish Rawat. Later, the Congress expelled them.
The rebels’ idea was to bring down Mr Rawat, but the intervention first by the High Court and finally the Supreme Court did not provide relief to them or the Centre, which had imposed President’s Rule in the state on March 27. Earlier this month, Mr Rawat managed to prove his majority in a trust vote ordered by the court.
Mr Bahuguna was the Congress chief minister between March 2012 and January 2014. The Congress replaced him with Harish Rawat to end the negative perception about the government.
The BJP was extremely critical of Mr Bahuguna’s tenure, attacking him over shelving pro-people policies, his alleged links with the builder lobby and even the deals of Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
In 2014, state leaders of the BJP had asked for Harak Singh Rawat’s resignation from the cabinet as a case of molestation and criminal intimidation was registA week after the BJP lost its shot at power in Uttarakhand, its core group met today at the party’s Ashoka Road headquarters to discuss the future course of action in Uttarakhand amid the changed political scenario.
With the nine rebel MLAs formally joining BJP after the Uttarakhand fiasco, there is major dissatisfaction in the party’s state unit.A week after the BJP lost its shot at power in Uttarakhand, its core group met today at the party’s Ashoka Road headquarters to discuss the future course of action in Uttarakhand amid the changed political scenario.
The group comprised the state president, organisation secretary, five MPs and BJP president Amit Shah.The meeting began at around 3 and was reportedly progressing smoothly till the issue of inducting the nine rebel MLAs cropped up. At this moment, several MLAs are said to have voiced their disapproval at the proposed inclusion.
Amit Shah interferes
The dominant view was that inducting these MLAs will put a lot of them in an uncomfortable situation. The core group members said that since they had been campaigning against the alleged charges of ‘corruption’ by the likes of Vijay Bahuguna and Harak Singh Rawat, inducting these very faces would blunt their fight against the Congress.
They also objected to the kind of language used by some rebel MLAs against BJP and RSS pracharaks. The final decision on the rebels however, was left to party president Amit Shah.
According to sources, one neta expressed unhappiness over the way the entire operation had been conducted and suggested that party trusted too much the kind of information being supplied by the rebels.
The party president gave everyone a patient hearing and it was decided that if the rebels have to join the BJP, then this was the best time for it. Interestingly, the reasons for the party’s failure in Uttarakhand weren’t discussed at all.
Apart from these developments, the core group also decided that the BJP will launch a state-wide agitation against the Congress party.
