Satpal Maharaj n his wife pay homage to late Rohit Shekhar Tiwari today

The former union minister of state for Railways and Finance and current minister for Tourism, Government of Uttarakhand Satpal Maharaj and his wife Amrita Rawat also minister during the Congress governments in Uttarakhand today visited the Tilak Lane resident of late ND Tiwari currently occupied by his wife Ujjwala Tiwari and paid their floral tributes to young Rohit Shekhar Tiwari who was allegedly strangulated and smothered to death by his advocate wife practising in Supreme Court of India.

She is now in Tihar Jail as murder undertrial having accepted her involvement in the murder of her late husband.

Both Satpal Maharaj n his wife Amrita Rawat also known as Mataji by their followers paid their heartfelt tributes to the departed young soul n expressed condolenses to late Rohit’s mother Ujjwala Sharma Tiwari.

Both of them garlended Rohit’s picture n paid their respects with folded hands in front of his picture.

Tourism minister Satpal Maharaj was politically in late ND Tiwari’s camp when the latter left the then prime minister PV Narsimha Rao to form Congress Tiwari.

He was later on made minister of state for Railways and there after state minister of finance during the tenure of HD Devegowda from Tiwari Congress’s quota.

Later on in the year 2002 when Congress brought majority in the Uttarakhand state elections it was primarily Satpal Maharaj who want to repay ND Tiwari by installing him the chief minister of Uttarakhand.

It was in 2002, the name of the then Congress president of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat was almost finalised by the then Congress High Command but Satpal Maharaj n Vijay Bahuguna who were in anti Harish Rawat camp clubbed together in order to keep Harish Rawat at bay from the CM’s post.

I was the witness to the entire political development during those days.

The MLAs of Vijay Bahuguna and Satpal Maharaj groups joined together on the instructions of Maharaj n Bahuguna and internally revolted against Rawat’s nomination as the state CM.

Both Vijay Bahuguna and Satpal Maharaj n their few leuitenants like the then MLA from Pauri Garhwal who later on became minister for Edcation in Uttarakhand government Narendra Singh Bhandari n others went to ND Tiwari’s Tilak Lane residence and convinced him to be the next chief minister of Uttarakhand.

And this is how Rawat’s deserving chance was scuttled. The then Congress president Sonia Gandhi had no choice but to accept the candidature of the three time former UP CM ND Tiwari was was in fact politically idle those days, literally having no work, just convalescing in his Tilak Lane house as a retired veteran.

There was tremendous opposition to Tiwari’s nomination as the Congress’s first CM of Uttarakhand in Dehradun with his effigies being immolated by Rawat’s supporters.

This was how Satpal Maharaj n Bahuguna who are both now in BJP, sidelined Harish Rawat in the year 2000 by ganging up together and manipulating the situation thus making NDT agree to be the Uttarakhand CM. Since then Harish Rawat n Satpal Maharaj n Vijay Bahuguna were not in good terms n always manipulated against each other though being in Congress.

It was in 2016 that Rawat dethroned Vijay Bahuguna as CM Uttarakhand by defaming thr latter in the Uttarakhand disaster scam post 2013. Finally both Satpal Maharaj n Vijay Bahuguna parted ways with Rawat n joined BJP along with 11 other state Congress lawmakers.