Rawat’s camp demands resignation of Uttrakhand state president n Congress leader in the house Pritam n Indira Hridayesh

After the Congress’ s debacle in Uttarakhand as in other states of the country as well, but not so bad as was the case in Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana and Tamilnadu where the party lost all its seats, heavy discontent against the state leadership is brewing up, with the demand for immediate resignation of the state party chiefs.

While the party chiefs of Uttar Pradesh Raj Babber, Shiela Dikshit in Delhi n the Congress chief of Tamilnadu have already tendered their resignations to the party high command accepting the moral responsibily for the poor performance, the Uttarakhand Congress chief n former state minister Pritam Singh, who himself lost the election including 4 other Lok Sabhas of the state with a hefty margin, has not shown decency to follow suit on moral grounds.

There is tremendous pressure from the rival camps, especially from Harish Rawat group on Party High Command to ask for Pritam Singh’s resignation.

It is believed that one of the Congress MLA Harish Dhami n 6 others have openly threatened to form a group of their own if the current state president Pritam Singh and Indira Hriyadesh leader of the opposition in the state assembly are not asked to resign from their respective posts with immediate effect, holding them responsible for the party’s ugliest show .

It may be recalled that the political enemity between the former CM of Uttarakhand n AICC general secretary Harish Rawat n Pritam Singh group is well known in Uttarakhand’s political circles.

Indira Hridayesh who had been number two in all the state Congress governments is Rawat’s bete noire as well who has not worked in his election in Nainital lok sabha accuse Harish Rawat’s followers resulting in the latter’s shameful defeat by more than three lakh votes.

Pritam Singh himself lost from Tehri Garhwal with a huge margin of 2.6 lakh votes against BJP’s Maharani Rajya Laxmi.

Since the party has lost badly in this lok sabha elections Harish Rawat’s group has become active directly asking for the resignations of the incumbent Congress president Pritam Singh as well as the leader of the Congress in state assembly.

However, it’s also a known fact that during Harish Rawat’s tenure as the state CM, several important Congress leaders viz Satpal Maharaj, former CM Vijay Bahugna, Cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat, Subodh Uniyal and several MLAs ( 11 in numbers) in 2016/ 17 have jouned BJP leaving Congress party in a huff. They had to lose their assembly membership as well.

The Congress party too suffered a heavy loss under Rawat’s leadership giving 57 seats to BJP n Harish Rawat himself losing from two assembly seats respectively. It was then that instead of demoting Harish Rawat, he was elevated to significant positions like appointed as general secretary of AICC n member of the highest decision making body, the CWC.

Pritam Singh’s supporters argue that how can there be double standards for two leaders of the same state. If they ( Harish Rawat camp) are asking for Pritam Singh’s resignation, why was Harish Rawat elevated despite the party’s extremely poor show in Uttarakhand in 2017 assembly elections under his leadership.