DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand BJP MLA Umesh Sharma ‘Kau’, whom the party reportedly managed to stop from joining the Congress, has claimed he was in Delhi to persuade Yashpal and Sanjiv Arya not to return to the grand old party.
“I was in Delhi on the same day Arya re-joined the Congress to convince him otherwise. Senior leaders know where I was, doing what. Rumours of me joining the Congress are baseless,” said the MLA from Raipur. Kau is one of the nine Congress rebel MLAs who had switched to the BJP in 2016.
His claim was supported by the BJP state leadership. “He was doing his bit and we know about it. He has been given a task which he tried to accomplish,” said BJP’s Uttarakhand chief Madan Kaushik. Party sources claimed Kau was prevented with the promise of a plum post. “He was promised the slot vacated by Arya,” said a BJP insider.
Kau also claimed that three senior ministers, including Arya, did not want to take oath when Pushkar Singh Dhami was chosen as chief minister in July. Meanwhile, Arya announced to contest the 2022 elections from Bajpur. However, speculations are rife about his son Sanjiv, who is MLA from Nainital. Sarita Arya, state president of the Congress women’s wing, has threatened to leave the party if it fields Sanjiv.