There are rumours that at least ten MLAs of Congress are hobnobbing with BJP to join the ruling party, finding themselves of no relevance in the party being sidelined and thinking that since the Congress ship is sinking at the national level too there is no point staying in a party with no political future with the state electorates and the Congress rank and file totally disillusioned with the internal wranglings openly coming to the fore.
Though the internal bickerings in Congress party in Uttarakhand had been going on for several years but starting from 2012 when Vijay Bahuguna was appointed party CM, Harish Rawat started a strategic campaigning to oust Bahuguna and finally succeeded in convincing the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi to oust him as CM, for being totally incompetitive in tackling the post ecological disaster effects n consequences and providing balm on the injuries of the victims.
This resulted in Vijay Bahuguna training his guns against Harish Rawat for his unceremonious ouster as CM.
After Rawat came in as Uttarakhand CM, former CM Vijay Bahuguna and Satpal Maharaj ganged up and opened the guns against Rawat, finally able to destabilise his government in 2016-17 and joining Bhartiya Janata Party along with more than nine Congress MLAs roping in Harish Rawat in one of the sting operations of buying rebel MLAs to save his government. Rawat was then registered by the Indian premier investigation agency CBI.
This resulted in Congress and even Harish Rawat losing badly at the hustings in 2017 assembly elections and BJP swept to power.
Majority of the defector MLAs from Congress Satpal Maharaj, Dr. Harak Singh Rawat, Yashpal Arya, Subodh Uniyal etc became ministers.
However, after tasting the power for five years, later on Dr. Harak Singh Rawat and Yashpal Arya etc joined Congress again just before elections.
However, despite lots of hulla baloo, internal squabbles and hoping that anti incumbency factor would bring Congress back to power in 2022, the Congress lost badly with Harish Rawat, the party’s chief election strategist also losing from Lal Quan and Congress getting just 19 seats giving 47 to BJP in 2022.
The saffron party’s Modi magic worked tremendously and BJP trounced back on the power saddle breaking the myth that after every five years the alternate political party comes to power in Uttarakhand with BJP repeating in 2022 as well.
The internal wranglings between Harish Rawat and Pritam Singh factions did cost Congress heavily.
Highly annoyed and angered by the ongoing factionalism in Uttarakhand Congress the high command changed the state president Ganesh Godiyal and installed Karan Mahra, a losing MLA as state president, making defector Yashpal Arya as CLP leader with Bhuvan Kapri rewarded as deputy CLP leader as he defeated the Uttarakhand CM.
All these three new appointees on party’s significant posts are from Kumaon region with Garhwal getting no representation, annoying former Congress chief Ganesh Godiyal.
Not only he but a three time lawmaker Harish Dhami and Mayuk Mahar etc have openly voiced their resentment over these new appointments saying that their seniority has not been given any importance and those like Yashpal Arya had defected from Congress to BJP enjoying power for five years, have been given top slot including Karan Mahara having lost his own election.
There are reports that about ten MLAs are seriously planning to join BJP finding no lucrative opportunities in Congress party. Moreover, the former leader of the opposition Pritam Singh, a strong opponent of Harish Rawat is, also badly annoyed after being accused by Congress leaders for working against party candidates during assembly elections and encouraging instability n factionalism in the party.
Strongly rejecting these charges as baseless Pritam Singh while addressing media, said that he was the only leader who worked hard for Congress party for decades and had never done anything against the party interests. He threatened to resign from his assembly seat Chakrata if the charges levelled against him are proved to be true he said.
He also met the Uttarakhand CM Dhami raising speculations of his joining BJP though the chief minister turned down these as rumours saying that it was just a courtesy visit.
