After some days of speculation in the political circles, State Cabinet Minister Yashpal Arya has acknowledged that he has tendered his resignation from the post of the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee president in observance of the Congress party's 'one man-one post' tenet.
While Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said that Arya had offered to resign on the day he was made a Cabinet Minister, the Opposition BJP has said that Arya had resigned from the post of PCC chief in view of the imminent defeat which the Congress fears in the upcoming Panchayat and lok Sabha elections.
While speculation continues on who the next Uttarakhand PCC chief will be, political analysts state that whoever is selected for this post will face the twin challenges of the Panchayat polls and Parliamentary polls. Arya was the Uttarakhand PCC chief from 2007 to 2010 after which his term was extended to the present.
Of late, many within the party had raised objection to him continuing on two important posts. There was also talk of Arya being miffed at the CM though both the CM and Arya refuted such reports.
On Tuesday, Arya said that in view of the focused work needed for the upcoming Panchayat election and lok Sabha polls, he had recently met the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and offered to resign from the post of PCC president.
"I have tendered my resignation to the Congress state in-charge Ambika Soni," he said while adding that he took the decision in view of the party principle of 'one man-one post'.
The Chief Minister, too, said that Arya had simply followed the party tenet. Responding to a query on reported differences between him and Arya being one of the factors which led to this development, the CM said that such differences had been 'imagined' by some people.
He said that the next Uttarakhand PCC chief will be appointed soon. Meanwhile, the BJP State chief Tirath Singh Rawat has said that Arya had resigned from the post fearing the party's defeat in the upcoming lok Sabha polls.
While the BJP sees this development as substantiating its expectation of a resounding victory in the Parliamentary polls, observers point out that while the Congress had won all the five lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand in the previous polls and had also won the Assembly polls under Arya as the PCC chief, the next PCC chief will face a tough challenge in trying to repeat the party's earlier performance.
Cabinet ministers Surendra Singh Negi, Pritam Singh, MPs Satpal Maharaj and Pradeep Tamta are among those reportedly being considered in the race for the next Uttarakhand PCC chief.