Former Uttarakhand Kranti Dal senior leader Diwakar Bhatt recently said that if all the factions of the UKD unite within a month, he will be happy to serve the party as a general party worker.
However, his call for unification of the party factions has been outrightly rejected by Trivendra Singh Panwar, the head of the UKD-Panwar faction. Panwar has said that there is no question of uniting with the Airy faction headed by Kashi Singh Airy.
It is worth mentioning here that UKD members themselves and political analysts too state that unifying the various factions and offshoots of the UKD is the best hope for this once influential regional party to rise again in the political scenario. Since its division into two main factions and other smaller groups, the party has lost much of its public support and political standing due to the infighting and spate of allegations and counter allegations between the factional leaders.
Recently, Bhatt said that he was ready to work as a simple party worker if the factions reunite within a month. However, UKD- Panwar faction head TS Panwar has straight away rejected any talk of uniting with the faction headed by KS Airy. “These leaders are allies of the Congress and BJP and we will have nothing to do with them. We are building our own ground and working hard to regain the faith of the public in the State”.
“We will field our candidates in the upcoming Panchayat elections apart from which we will also contest for the five lok Sabha seats in the general elections next year,” stressed Panwar. Airy is presently touring the State and has lambasted the Congress-led State government for various anomalies in different works including the relief efforts for those affected by the disaster experienced in June this year. However, according to political observers, there is little hope for the Airy and Panwar factions uniting because both the leaders consider themselves to be the rightful heads of their faction which they both claim are the real UKD.