New Delhi, June 23
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Bhuvan Chand Khanduri today became the first major casualty of the BJP’s humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections.
Faced with mounting rebellion against Khanduri, spearheaded by former Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, the BJP high command asked the 75-year-old Khanduri to put in his papers.
The BJP central leadership discussed the issue during its just-concluded National Executive and also at the party’s core committee meeting yesterday. The decision to ask Khanduri to step down was arrived at late last night
BJP sources said the BJP legislature party in Uttarakhand would meet here tomorrow to elect its new leader. Koshiyari himself has thrown his hat in the ring though the two front-runners are said to be state health minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and tourism minister Prakash Pant.
Confirming that he had sent his resignation to BJP President Rajnath Singh, Khanduri said he had voluntarily offered to quit immediately after the BJP was decimated in the state in the Lok Sabha elections, losing all five seats.
Khanduri, a former Major-General and former Surface Transport Minister, looked crestfallen as he appeared before the media at the Uttarakhand Bhavan. “Are you paying the price for honesty?” a journalist casually asked him but the CM preferred to smile rather than responding to the query.
He did not agree with suggestions that the BJP government in the state had become discredited under his leadership.
