Cabinet Minister and wife of former Garhwal MP Satpal Maharaj, Amrita Rawat, has clarified that she neither wanted to leave Congress nor to resign from the State Cabinet.
Regarding speculation about Chief Minister Harish Rawat considering her removal from the State Cabinet, she said that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had often said that the party respected women and favoured increasing their presence in various fields; so removing her from the Cabinet would appear to go against the party’s stated position.
Addressing the media here on Monday, Rawat said that she felt it was important to clarify her stand considering the rising speculation about her leaving the Congress to join Maharaj in the BJP.
“I have no intention of resigning either from the Congress or from the State Cabinet. If the party high command calls me and asks me to resign from the Cabinet, I will do. However, I have won the Assembly election thrice and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi has often said-including at his rally in Dehradun- that the party respect women and is in favour of increasing their presence in various fields including politics so removing me from the cabinet will have far reaching consequences,” she said.
Regarding her husband’s joining the BJP she stressed that she remains a Congress member. “There are many examples of family members in rival parties like the Scindias in the Congress and BJP, so I don’t see any problem in our case,” she said.
Regarding the CM statement that Maharaj had not visited the disaster affected areas after the disaster in June last year, she said both Maharaj and their two sons were involved in the relief works.
“Maharaj had visited areas which were hard to access due to the damage wreaked by the disaster. Our two sons had visited the affected areas five times distributing relief materials to thousands of families. After Maharaj returned from his tour of disaster affected areas, he had submitted a list of suggestions to the Congress State in-charge Ambika Soni and these suggestions were approved by the State cabinet to facilitate required relief to the disaster affected,” she said.
On being asked whether she would contest from the Garhwal lok Sabha seat if asked to do so by the party high command, Rawat said that she was happy being an MlA and cabinet minister, however, she clarified that she had no desire to contest from the Garhwal parliamentary seat at the moment.