PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/ New Tehri
With the arch rivals-BJP and Congress- gearing up for the Assembly election slated in February-March 2027, the mayor of the municipal corporation, Srinagar Garhwal, Aarti Bhandari and her husband Lakhpat Bhandari, who was earlier a district panchayat member, have switched to BJP and taken the ruling party’s membership at the BJP office in Dehradun on Wednesday. Aside from the couple, 10 councillors of the Srinagar civic body, including two from the Congress, have also formally joined the BJP.
The state BJP brass, including the chief minister Pushkar Dhami, Srinagar Garhwal MLA and Cabinet Minister Dhan Singh Rawat and the state party president Mahendra Bhatt were present during the membership induction ceremony.
Notably, the veteran politician Aarti Bhandari contested the municipal corporation elections as an independent candidate a year ago and won by a margin of about 1600 votes. She later became the first woman mayor of Srinagar municipal corporation.
