DEHRADUN : Veteran Congress leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat on Friday urged his partymen to work towards reclaiming the position lost to the BJP at the “national, state and grassroots” levels.
“The BJP has effectively replaced us not only at the national and state levels but also at the grassroots, within our villages and local communities. Unless we reclaim our positions there, how can we assert ourselves as the true leaders of our regions?” he said.
With only two weeks remaining for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttarakhand, Rawat raised concerns about his party in an analytical statement. Expressing concern at the developments, he said that the BJP has surpassed the Congress at every level.
He also launched a scathing attack on his former colleagues who defected from the Congress to join the BJP. Without explicitly naming them, he chastised his former associates on social media. When approached by this newspaper for his response, Rawat remarked lightheartedly, “You are intelligent, decipher the message I have conveyed on Facebook.”
On Thursday, Rawat took to his Facebook page to share a cryptic post. In the post, he wrote, “Bin kahhe raha na jaye,” implying that the media is questioning why some of his close friends, who have been generously rewarded, are now departing in unison.
The ex-CM wrote in response, “I said there are always some reasons behind everyone’s anger. Some people are upset because during my tenure they had taken an ‘advance’ to appoint an SDM as an ADM”.
“A ‘revered’ individual is upset because I refused to transfer some assets of Swargashram Rishikesh in the name of their organisation,” his post read.
On shaky grounds
With only two weeks remaining for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttarakhand, Rawat raised concerns about his party in an analytical statement. Expressing concern at the developments, he said that the BJP has surpassed the Congress at every level.