Tuesday, 14 September 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
Harish Rawat, Pritam Singh, Ganesh Godiyal & Kishore Upadhyaya in Delhi
Seemingly alarmed by the aggressive poaching campaign unleashed by the ruling BJP, the Congress party has come into an alert mode. On Monday all the four top leaders of the Uttarakhand Congress, the head of campaign committee and former chief minister Harish Rawat, the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ganesh Godiyal, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Pritam Singh and former PCC president Kishore Upadhyaya were in Delhi.
The presence of these leaders in Delhi triggered speculation that the party high command has summoned these leaders to discuss the strategy to counter the ‘Operation Lotus’ said to have been started by the BJP. It is learnt that the party high command has taken the recent defection of Purola MLA Rajkumar to the BJP seriously. The party leadership is also concerned about the speculation that some more Congress leaders would join the saffron party in the coming days. The party is believed to be working on a two pronged strategy which envisages blocking the possible attempts by the BJP to poach its leaders and undertake a counter offensive to make dent into the BJP by wooing the disgruntled leaders. The recent restlessness shown by the leaders of Congress background in the BJP and the voices of dissent within the BJP over importing leaders just ahead of assembly elections has given hope to the Congress that some fence sitters in BJP can switch sides.
On Monday the CLP leader Pritam Singh met in charge of the Uttarakhand Congress Devendra Yadav in Delhi and Harish Rawat was scheduled to meet general secretary K C Venugopal.
When contacted, Yadav told The Pioneer that the party has not summoned any leader of Uttarakhand to Delhi. Incidentally Monday was the birthday of Yadav.
The spokesperson of Congress party Garima Dasauni too claimed that central leadership has not summoned any leader from Uttarakhand to Delhi. She said that Harish Rawat would meet K C Venugopal to discuss the Punjab issue.
