DEHRADUN: In a setback to the Congress, former state Congress president Kishore Upadhyay on Thursday joined the BJP, days ahead of the February 14 Assembly polls in Uttarakhand.
Union Minister and the party's election in-charge for Uttarakhand Pralhad Joshi and Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt welcomed Upadhyay into the BJP fold.
It is speculated that the BJP might field him from Tehri constituency. Upadhyay had won the Tehri seat in 2002 and 2007. However, in the 2012 polls, he lost to independent candidate Dinesh Dhanai by 377 votes.
In 2017, he had contested from Sahaspur in Dehradun instead of Tehri and was defeated by BJP's Sahdev Singh Pundir. Earlier, the Congress had expelled him from the party for six years for "anti-party activities."
Upadhyay was also the minister of state for industries in the first elected government of Uttarakhand led by chief minister late Narayan Dutt Tiwari. He served as the chief of Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee from 2014 to 2017.
Upadhyay had long been accusing the Congress of neglecting him despite being a senior leader and his defection to the BJP is being seen in this context.