DEHRADUN: Accusing Harish Rawat of striking a deal with a former BJP MLA to desert the party following a sting by a private news channel, state BJP chief Ajay Bhatt demanded the chief minister's resignation, saying he had again brought disrepute to Uttarakhand.
Bhatt also urged the CBI which is currently looking into an earlier sting operation on Rawat to bring the latest video under the ambit of its investigations.
The earlier sting purportedly showed Rawat negotiating a deal to buy the support of disgruntled party MLAs at the the time of the political crisis in the state in March last year.
Dan Singh Bhandari who was BJP's MLA from Bhimtal resigned from the state assembly at the time of the political crisis when nine Congress MLAs rebelled against Rawat and joined BJP. Bhandari had joined Congress later.
On the basis of the latest sting, Bhatt accused Rawat of striking a deal of Rs 7 crore with Bhandari to make him resign from the assembly to reduce the number of BJP MLAs in the House. However, Bhatt said out of the promised amount of Rs 7 crore Bhandari was paid Rs 3 crore.
Charging Rawat with once again sullying the reputation of the state also called Devbhoomi, Bhatt asked him to step down as chief minister saying he had no moral right to remain in office.
However, commenting on the development Pradesh Congress Vice President Jot Singh Bisht said it was BJP's conspiracy to tarnish the image of the chief minister and the party ahead of the February 15 Assembly elections.