Drama in Uttarakhand: Congress dumping makes it easy for Kishore Upadhyay to eye BJP role
Ahead of the Uttarakhand Assembly polls, Congress expels party’s former state chief Kishore Upadhyay for anti-party activities
It isn’t just Uttar Pradesh or Punjab, the Congress party is being dealt with blows in Uttarakhand too. Coming just ahead of the poll dates, the setbacks are not what the party high command could afford to ignore.
Uttarakhand goes to the polls on February 14 and the results will be declared on March 10. By then, it remains to be seen if the Congress party will have something to talk about in terms of gains. The latest hit that has come to the party follows the action taken to expel Kishore Upadhyay, the former chief of the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee, from the primary membership of the party.
Thrown out of the party and stripped of his primary membership for what the Congress top bosses term “anti-party activities”, Upadhyay would now look to be part of the BJP, obviously.
Kishore Upadhyay indulged in anti-party activities, believes Congress
A letter written by the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) in-charge Devender Yadav and addressed to Kishore Upadhyay stated that the party is dismissing him from its primary membership for six years. The reason has been attributed to Upadhyay’s involvement in “anti-party activities”. Yadav notes in the letter that the dismissal comes after several instances of warning issued to Upadhyay earlier.
The Congress believes that Upadhyay was already establishing ties with the BJP and other political parties, and that makes him not worthy of a party membership. Following this, Upadhyay had been removed from all positions in the Congress for anti-party activities.
It needs to be seen that Upadhyay may have already decided to leave the party. The dismissal just proved it would be easier for him to switch loyalties faster. However, for the Congress party, Upadhya’s exit could be bad at the time of the polls.
Congress leader with a BJP dream?
This is because Upadhyay has been a known face of the party in Uttarakhand, having been elected as MLA twice. The senior leader won the Assembly elections from the Tehri constituency in 2002 and 2007. He has also served the Congress party as president of the party’s Uttarakhand unit between 2014 and 2017.
However, of late, he had been seeing the BJP as a possible avenue to switch. He had dropped hints on those lines when he had a meeting with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election in-charge for Uttarakhand Prahlad Joshi. Since then there have been rumours that Upadhyay might exit the Congress for the BJP.
The rumours now seem to be turning true, and the Congress decision to dismiss him from the party’s primary membership would only help him switch over with no regrets whatsoever.
