Vijay Bahuguna, 8 Uttarakhand Rebels Expelled By Congress, Join BJP

New Delhi: After criticising Vijay Bahuguna every day of his two-year stint as the chief minister of Uttarakhand, the BJP today inducted him into the party fold along with eight other rebels expelled by Congress.

Mr Bahuguna had stepped down from the chief minister's post in January 2014, eventually rebelling against Harish Rawat, who is back as the Chief Minister in the state.

Barring the party's general secretary in-charge of the state Shyam Jaju, no senior BJP leader was present at the induction, which was held in Delhi. Alok Bhatt, the state unit chief of the BJP, said, "These leaders sacrificed their membership of the assembly and have joined the BJP without conditions".

In his address, Mr Bahuguna said, "For two years, we kept trying to alert Congress central leaders about resentment in state unit. We hope the voters will now see we didn't act for lure of power or money. We are with Mr Modi, who is a pragmatic and inspiring leader."
 
The clearance for the induction came during a meeting of the BJP state unit leaders with party chief Amit Shah. A go ahead was given for the induction of the 9 rebels, and Rekha Arya of Congress, who had voted for the BJP during the trust vote. BJP sources said Ms Arya, who is currently attending the Kumbh mela in Allahabad, will be joining later.

Mr Bahuguna and eight other lawmakers, including seniors like Harak Singh Rawat, had been disqualified by the Uttarakhand assembly speaker in March after they revolted against Harish Rawat.  Later, the Congress expelled them.

The rebels' idea was to bring down Mr Rawat, but the intervention first by the High Court and finally the Supreme Court did not provide relief to them or the Centre, which had imposed President's Rule in the state on March 27. Earlier this month, Mr Rawat managed to prove his majority in a trust vote ordered by the court.
 
Mr Bahuguna was the Congress chief minister between March 2012 and January 2014. The Congress replaced him with Harish Rawat to end the negative perception about the government.

The BJP was extremely critical of Mr Bahuguna's tenure, attacking him over shelving pro-people policies, his alleged links with the builder lobby and even the deals of Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

In 2014, state leaders of the BJP had asked for Harak Singh Rawat's resignation from the cabinet as a case of molestation and criminal intimidation was registered against him. He was a BJP lawmaker in undivided Uttar Pradesh almost 2 decades ago.