2 Congress leaders join BJP in poll-bound Uttarakhand

The Bharatiya Janata Party, in power in Uttarakhand, was the beneficiary of defections from the Congress party, which is in the opposition in the state assembly.
 
Party leader Rajnath Singh along with state chief B C Khanduri and other senior BJP leaders welcomed former Congress members Renu Adhikari and Barkha Rani in New Delhi on Sunday, saying that more defections were in the pipeline.
 
"Elected representatives (of the Congress) have accepted BJP's membership. Many others have made contact, and will accept the BJP's membership," he said.
 
Adhikari and Rani had left the Congress party protesting a lack of fairness in the issue of party tickets for the January 30 Assembly polls in the state.
 
Singh declined any confirmation on whether the new entrants to the party fold would be given tickets, saying

that was a decision to be taken by the party's Central Election Committee that would convene on Monday.
 
Adhikari, who is the chairperson of Uttarakhand's Haldwani municipality, said that the Congress party had given tickets to people with hardly any support at the grassroots level.
 
"I have analysed and concluded that only those who are sycophants of senior (Congress) leaders and ministers in Delhi are being given tickets. Private companies have been given a free hand in such decisions. Many people are getting tickets, who have neither any political presence or mass base," she said.
 
The state's ruling BJP government has been marred by corruption charges that led to the eviction of Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank as chief minister. His post was taken over by Khanduri, who had the unenviable task of cleaning BJP's image before the polls.