Ahead of the visit of the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, speculation is running rife in the state’s political circles that a top BJP leader is all set to join the Congress on March 16- the day Gandhi would kick-start his party’s poll campaign in the Himalayan state.
The speculation gained ground when on Monday, the leader of opposition in the Uttarakhand Assembly Indira Hridayesh had claimed while talking to the media persons at Haldwani that a senior BJP leader would join the Congress in the presence of Rahul Gandhi on March 16.
The rumours which are flying thick and fast suggest that a senior BJP leader who at present holds a cabinet post in Trivendra Singh Rawat government and who had joined BJP on the eve of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections is the person Indira Hridayesh referred to. The name of another cabinet minister of Uttarakhand who earlier was in the Congress is also making rounds in the political circles agog with speculation as the likely person to join the Congress.
The rumours has received sustenance from the fact that while BJP is facing the problem of plenty, the Congress on the other had is bereft of big leaders in Uttarakhand and in such a situation, one or two senior leaders of BJP switching over to the Congress on assurance of Lok Sabha ticket cannot be ruled out.
Scotching the rumours, the state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt said that no BJP leader is leaving the party. “No one likes to land in a sinking ship,’’ he quipped. However, when asked by the journalists on the chances of a senior BJP leader switching over to Congress during the rally to be addressed by the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the state Congress chief Pritam Singh said that one should wait and watch till the rally of Rahul Gandhi is over. “Things would be clear soon,” he said, something which lends credence to the claim made by the leader of the opposition in the Assembly.