Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri has virtually landed in hot water in the wake of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) debacle in Uttarakhand in the just-held Lok Sabha elections.
With the party losing all the five seats to the Congress, the BJP’s worst performance since the formation of the state, the disgruntled party MLAs led by former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari have decided to make a fresh move to oust Khanduri on the ground that Uttarakhand was the only BJP-ruled state where it even failed to open an account. “We will shortly take up the matter related to the BJP’s performance with the high command,” said a Cabinet minister close to Koshiyari.
The Koshiyari camp is of the view that Khanduri must take the moral responsibility of the BJP’s defeat as he was the face of the party in the hill state during the electioneering and had played a major role in the distribution of tickets.
In this regard, the sources pointed out that Khanduri was responsible for ignoring former BJP MLA Munna Singh Chauhan from Tehri where the Congress won convincingly this time. They said that the saffron party lost its ground in the Chakrata-Sahaspur belt where Chauhan’s influence was tremendous.
The Koshiyari camp would also take up the issue of Khanduri’s style of functioning. In this regard, the sources said the morale of the party workers was down due to inaccessibility at the residence and office of Khanduri.
A separate letter to BJP President Rajnath Singh is also being sent.
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Meanwhile, Khanduri has described the results in Uttarakhand as “unexpected” but said the party would review them in a day or two.