Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri stepped down on Tuesday bowing to pressure from dissidents – aggravated after the party lost all five Lok Sabha seats in the state.
The names of state minister for tourism Prakash Pant and health minister Ramesh Pokhriyal are doing the rounds as possible replacements.
Dissident leader B S Koshiyari, who campaigned relentlessly for Khanduri’s removal almost since the latter’s appointment as chief minister, is unlikely to get the nod.
The version put out by the party that Khanduri offered to step down, taking moral responsibility for the defeat, was only partly true. A choice of the central leadership who favoured him because of his performance as Union surface transport minister in Vajpayee government — he gave the push to the ambitious national highways project — the retired major general could not win over the MLAs aligned with unsuccessful contenders for chief ministership.
While the central leadership persevered with him, he had appeared to be hanging by a slender thread since the poll wipeout.
Sources said his resignation is unlikely to herald the across-the-board application of the accountability principle.
Though Koshiyari enjoys the support of the cadre, party leadership is miffed with him for taking the extreme step of seeking to resign his Rajya Sabha seat to force a change of leadership. Eventually, Koshiyari withdrew his resignation but the leadership is wary of being seen as rewarding rebellion, at a time when it is wracked by dissidence at the central level.
Social equations also seem to rule Koshiyari out. Leadership is sensitive to the caste dynamic, espcially the legendary Thakur-Brahmin rivalry in the state. With Khanduri being a Brahmin, the party may like to substitute him with a casteman rather than a Thakur like Koshiyari.
Khanduri, who claims the support of 19 legislators, is said to be backing Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank to succeed him. Prakash Pant is also said to be in the reckoning. Khanduri is currently the only Brahmin chief minister in BJP ranks, while Pokhriyal and Pant too are Brahmins. Another name doing the rounds is that of Trivendra Singh Rawat.
At the press conference to announce his resignation, a clearly peeved Khanduri, however, noted that the party had performed creditably in around seven elections, including local-body elections, held under his tenure, and hinted at party rivals having worked against party interests in the general election.
The retired Major General had his baptism in politics during the Ram Temple movement in 1990s and there was no looking back for the leader, who got elected to the Lok Sabha four times and later shifted to state politics to hold reigns of the state for over two years.
He entered the portals of Parliament for the first time in 1991 when he won the Lok Sabha elections from Garhwal. He became a Union Minister of State ( Independent charge) in the NDA government, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000, and was elevated to the cabinet rank in 2003.
As the minister in charge of road, transport and highways, he was credited with speedy implementation of BJP&aposs prestigious National Highways Development Project.
After winning the Lok Sabha polls thrice more in 1998, 1999 and 2004, Khanduri came to state politics and became Uttarakhand chief minister in March 2007 after leading his party to victory in the new state carved out of Uttar Pradesh.
However, he felt the heat from dissidents within the party and the pro-changers led by former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari bayed for his blood after BJP was routed in the hill state.
News Source: Times of India | Indian Express | PTI
