FRONT PAGE | Sunday, June 14, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Uttarakhand simmers
Sunil Kumar | Dehra Dun
Party cracks whip on dissidents
With BJP National Executive scheduled for June 20-21, rival factions in the Uttarakhand unit have once again got into battle gear. Early on Saturday morning State BJP general secretary Teerath Singh Rawat issued a showcause notice on former Minister and faction leader MLA Kedar Singh Fonia asking him to explain why no disciplinary action should be taken against him for criticising the Government and Chief Minister in public.
Fonia a few days back had alleged that chief minister Maj Gen BC Khanduri and the State Government are singularly responsible for the party’s humiliating defeat in all the five Parliamentary seats in the State.
Following the move, the dissident faction is believed to have started to regroup and demand removal of the CM ahead of the National Executive. According to unconfirmed reports, eight MLAs are believed to have conveyed it to the leadership that they were forwarding their resignation to the speaker of the Vidhan Sabha, Harbans Kapur. But Kapur denied meeting any MLA or receiving any resignation letter.
Apparently buoyed by the dissidence in the party at the national level, BJP MLAs opposed to Khanduri met at the residence of his rival BS Koshiyari to chalk out their strategy.
The meeting generated speculation that the legislators, including some Ministers, could threaten resignation to make the high command force the CM to quit in the wake of the party's rout in the Lok Sabha elections.
Sources in the CM office, however, said that there was no threat to the State Government and confirmed that the Vidhan Sabha secretariat had not received any resignations. Even sources within the dissident camp said that even they didn’t have any information about such a political development. Interestingly, party general secretary and Former State Health Minister Ajay Bhatt said “I’ve come to know through the media that there was a move by certain legislators to put in their papers. But I’m yet to know who they are and to whom have they sent their resignations.”
Earlier, Bhatt’s name had come up as the ‘compromise candidate’ for the CM’s post, although Bhatt is not member of the Vidhan Sabha.
Following the defeat in the General Election, and the CM accepting the moral responsibility for the defeat, the party High Command had sent two observers, Thevar Chand Gehlot and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, to evaluate the situation and find a solution. The two had interacted at the meeting with the MLAs individually and were surprised that 24 out of the 34 BJP MLAs had supported continuance of Khanduri in office.
Following the report of the observers, the party High Command had decided to defer a decision on the issue of Uttarakhand till after the Kapkot bypoll results.
BJP scored a handsome victory in the poll reducing the Congress to the third positon. Both the ruling and the dissident factions have been trying to take the credit for Kapkot seat victory.
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